Gypsies and itinerant labour on the land

Harvest work circa 1910

Gypsies moved with the seasons and here they are helping with the corn harvest near Bourne circa 1910 while employed by Sneath and Son of Thurlby, a firm of agricultural contractors run by Henry Sneath who relied heavily on itinerant labour such as travelling families.

The seasonal nature of agricultural work in past times meant that itinerant workers were essential to bring in the crops and although the wives and children of farm workers have always been a ready source of labour, gypsies were invariably on hand to provide help when needed.

They have a rich history of harvest work, notably hop picking in Kent, collecting apples in Worcestershire, soft fruit in Cambridgeshire, lifting sugar beet in Norfolk and bringing in the corn harvest around the country. Their asset to such work was mobility as travelling families who moved with the seasons and often turned up on the same farms when work was available by habit rather than command.

Gypsies are a wandering race, probably of Indian origin, and their language, Romany, is a corrupted dialect of Hindi. On their arrival in Britain, probably in the late 15th century, they were wrongly thought to have come from Egypt, hence the name.

It was as metal workers that most gypsies made a living and their activities broadened to include basket and peg making, horse dealing, selling flowers and herbs and telling fortunes, the latter occupation with some financial success because a folklore soon became established that unless you crossed a gypsy's palm with silver when she offered to tell your future, bad luck would come your way.

They were also entertainers and considered to be splendid fiddlers and pipers while the traditional decorated gypsy caravans or Romany carts, as they are also known, can still be seen in parts of England, especially during the hop and fruit picking seasons. But the decline of the county fairs at which gipsies used to trade has led to many abandoning the traditional nomadic way of life and those that remain are regarded with suspicion in many areas.

Their traditional craft of metal working which has a long and honoured history has evolved into the recycling of scrap metal and abandoned encampments littered with car parts and other such debris have not endeared them to nearby communities. Local authorities now have a duty to consider their needs for camp sites and some provide them with electricity and running water but not all have been treated with respect and many have been badly vandalised. There have also been complaints in some parts of the country about their purchase of land and subsequent development for living purposes without the required planning permission but councils are reluctant to proceed against them for fear of infringing race relations legislation.

There is currently a climate of tolerance towards travelling families by the public at large and it remains to be seen whether the gypsy community will use this to its advantage or continue to defy convention and the law in pursuit of a way of life that is fast becoming outmoded and even uncomfortable.

Gypsies at Cawthorpe
Gypsy encampment at Cawthorpe in the summer of 2000

The wide grass verges at Cawthorpe village, just off the main A15 one mile north of Bourne, provided excellent parking for gypsies who camped there often, making their Romany carts, vans and horses a familiar sight. Villagers however disliked their presence and lodged a protest with Lincolnshire County Council and officials subsequently ordered the landscaping of both sides of the road with the planting of a variety of saplings that have now become young trees, making the verges totally inaccessible for camping.

WRITTEN APRIL 2005

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