Author Archives: admin

In 1820 the Ipswich Quarter Sessions recorded the removal of a Gypsy family from Hargrave, Suffolk to Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire, and Sawbridgeworth’s appeal against this order: Removal of Margaret, wife of Robert Smith, and their six children – Senna, their daughter, aged ten years and upwards; Cornelius, aged eight years … Continue reading →

Repentance Ware was born the youngest of a large family, when her mother was in her early forties, and baptised at Spetisbury, Dorset on 2nd July 1775, the daughter of Martha Crabb. Martha herself had been baptised in the same village on 9th October 1733, a child of William Crabb … Continue reading →

In Devon, on 15th March 1818, in the parish of Collumpton, a Gypsy couple, Abraham and Unity Boswell, baptised a baby daughter with her mother’s name; it was their first child together, and I am grateful to Mark Hughes for this information, and for that of little Unetta’s burial, for … Continue reading →

The union between Hercules Stanley, whose alternative name appears to have been Edward, and Parthenia, resulted in six known children, and there were probably several more. Hercules and Parthenia must have been born in the late 1600s, as their first child, also a Hercules, was baptised in 1717, and their … Continue reading →

In the spring of 1847 Mary Cox, together with her elder sisters, Catherine and Susan, left her village life in Dorset and went to London – for Catherine had a plan to make their fortunes. They were soon performing equestrienne feats at the famous Astley’s Amphitheatre, as Kitty, Sukey and … Continue reading →