In the spring of 1856, at Witcham, in Cambridgeshire, three siblings were baptised together, Alfred, aged three, Sevinah, aged two, and the baby, Despair, as the children of Montague and Elizabeth Smith. The couple can be found in the 1871 census, where the father is recorded as Montague Gray, Elizabeth … Continue reading →

At Rotherfield Greys, in Oxfordshire, the daughter of a Traveller was baptised on 13th March 1743 with the name ‘Clarenda.’ The following year, at the Midsummer Quarter Sessions in Winchester, Hampshire, there is a removal record listing Peter Stanley, Richard and Millicent Stanley, their daughter Clarinda, together with James Scamp, … Continue reading →

The name Clarinda Stanley appears three times in Hampshire records in the eighteenth century. The first reference is in the Midsummer Quarter Sessions at Winchester in 1744, when Peter Stanley, Richard and Millicent Stanley, their daughter Clarinda, together with James Scamp, Thomas and Elgina (?Algenny) Scamp and their daughter Mary, … Continue reading →

When Gypsy John Budd Gray was sentenced to 12 years ‘across the seas’ for horse stealing the court case, at Lincoln Assizes in 1844, attracted considerable attention in the local newspapers, perhaps because it involved a significant Gypsy family. John was the son of Thomas Gray and Susanna, and the … Continue reading →

Kerenhappuch Loveridge was a daughter of Henry Loveridge and Anne Halford, baptised in Buckinghamshire and forming a union with William Smith. She can be traced, as a widow, ‘aged 70 years,’ in the 1871 census in a caravan at Eastcotts, Bedfordshire, where she is described as a cousin of the … Continue reading →