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Travellers through time |
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On the one hand, their itinerant lifestyle has always attracted suspicion from the settled community as well as accusations of being unsanitary and dishonest. In 1906, a letter to the Times, written by Henry Lazarus from Bushey Heath, described the “filth and infection”, which, in the writer’s view, was carried by gypsies “wherever they go”. 
The camping spot would be close to a place of work
© Photographer unknown, from a collection held at the University of Liverpool Library |
The letter continued to accuse the “foreigners” of polluting villages where they camped.
But others took a more liberal view. The letters written by Margaret Gilbert later in the 20th Century, show a real interest in the traveller families in Hereford, and a desire to learn more about their way of life. They also show her becoming close friends with one particular gypsy family, the Smiths. Certainly relations could often be good in the past, as each side recognised their dependency on the other. Gypsies and travellers were valued for the goods and services they brought with them, and for their part, the travellers recognised they needed the custom of the settled community to survive.
Relations with the settled community also became closer through intermarriage. Some travellers and gypsies married locals, and it was usually the “settled” woman that married the traveller or gypsy, as the kinship is traditionally traced through the female line. 
The knock on the door could be a lady selling pegs
© Photographer unknown, from a collection held at the University of Liverpool Library |
Others like the industrial workers, mostly from the Black County would come to Herefordshire to work during the summer to escape factory working conditions.
There are many stories of inter-marriage between these two communities, which increased the level of integration between the traveller and settled communities. The two communities also came together at fair-time. Gypsies and travellers would congregate from all over at these fairs, setting up stalls for everything from cushions to carpets. There was also a lot of horse dealing, and farmers would often travel some distance to buy horses.
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