Travellers Community
History
The first Gypsy people migrated into Europe from India in the Middle Ages, arriving here in the 15th Century. Due to the darkness of their complexion, it was thought they had come from Egypt and were called 'Egyptians', hence the spelling of 'Gypsy' from 'Egypt'.
Gypsies are only one of the groups that are included in the term 'Travellers', this is a commonly used term that includes people from a variety of groups, all of whom are or were nomadic. The main groups are:
• English Gypsies
• Romany Gypsy refugees and asylum seekers
• Irish
• Fairground and Show people
• Scottish
• Bargee and water craft Travellers
• Welsh
• New Travellers (people from the settled community originated in the 1960s Hippy movement)
• Circus people
It has been estimated that there are around 300,000* Gypsies and Travellers in the UK.
Source: Commission for Racial Equality, 2003
First British Travellers
It is thought that Gypsies (Roma) first arrived in Great Britain in about 1500, following centuries of migration from North-western India across Europe. These people worked as entertainers or metalworkers. During the reign of Henry VIII it was a capital offence (punishable by hanging) to be a Gypsy. Even those who mixed with Gypsies were punished.
During the 1700s, the enclosures of common land made nomadic lifestyles more difficult.
After 1780, anti-Gypsy legislation was gradually repealed, although there were other forms of hardship for Travellers. In 1822, the Turnpike Road Act charged a 40 shilling fine for camping on the side of a turnpike road (this law was still in use up until 1980). Over the Irish Sea, some of the Irish families took to the road after the devastating potato famine in the 1850s.
Many in towns and villages welcomed Travellers as they performed useful services such as mending household items, selling things and bringing news from one village to the next. It was during this time, the romantic and mysterious image of Gypsies was widely spread, through the novels, music and paintings of the time.
Travellers in Hertfordshire
For centuries Travellers have been staying and passing through the county as it is situated between dense, urban London and the wide-open rural spaces of East Anglia. Hertfordshire has and always will be, an important stopping place for Travellers. Both city (scrap collection, road work or landscaping) and country (agriculture) provide work. Look around, you will see Travellers Lane (Hatfield), Travellers Close (Welwyn) or Gypsy Lane (Great Amwell), all testimony to this history.
Hertfordshire has 11 Traveller sites run by the council. Some are very old. The Holwell site near Hertford was opened in 1965. In addition, there are a number of private sites where families have bought land and gained planning permission to site their caravans there.
Also, overwintering fairground yards are privately owned, fairground folk return to these at the end of their travelling season. ‘Barbaraville’ is a private site in the Welwyn and Hatfield area of Hertfordshire that was given to local Gypsies by the famous late novelist Barbara Cartland in the 1960s.
Travellers passing through may stop on unauthorised sites whilst they are working in the area. While travelling fairs and circuses usually only stay for a week or so, on pre-booked public spaces. Like so many of us, Travellers also live in houses. As life on the road becomes harder, this is an increasing trend amongst many of the Traveller groups.
Information supplied by the Passing Places exhibition
