June 2024
This Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month we bring you some history from the generations of GRT communities that have lived and worked on the South Downs
The following piece of writing is written and researched by Romany Gypsy Historian Janet Keet-Black. Kate Richardson and Janet Keet-Black are both researching GRT histories in local archives as part of the Changing Chalk project.
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Romany & Traveller Family History Society | Research your roots and learn about your heritage. (rtfhs.org.uk)
Travelling and Occupations
Not all Gypsies were hawkers and not all hawkers were Gypsies. There were many settled people who took to the roads with their wagons and wares, thereby swelling the ranks of traditional Travellers. They were the forerunner to the baker, fishmonger and greengrocer vans.
Other non-Gypsy travellers included drovers, broom and brush makers, charcoal makers, masons, bell hangers and thatchers.
Brighton fishwives regularly walked into Lewes via Juggs Road carrying freshly caught fish in jugs, while shepherds drove their sheep and pigs over the downs to graze in the low weald, then drove them back for slaughter.
For most traditional Travellers, the start of the travelling year was early spring, although there were some who travelled year-round.
During winter, however, many gravitated towards towns and large villages where they stopped in yards, lodging houses, paid rent on private houses or found stopping places on the outskirts.
Whilst some continued to follow ‘typical’ Traveller trades, others found work as ostlers, coal heavers, fly-drivers or pot men amongst others.
Some women took on laundry work to supplement their hawking. This resulted in many Romany/Gypsies and show people being ‘hidden’ in towns and villages at census time, which can make identifying them difficult, especially when all family members claimed they were born in the place where they were recorded and/or were following non-typical Traveller occupations.
Added to this, some families returned to the same place each year and in some cases to the same property, many in the growing coastal towns of Sussex.
Gradually, some families became semi-settled but still retained an element of their culture and traditions by travelling for the harvest and hop and fruit picking, leaving their homes to travel over and along the downs to reach the farms and hop gardens which were expecting them.
Outside of harvesting and fruit-picking time, Travellers took their wares and services around both villages and towns.
Villagers were somewhat dependant on the visits of travelling tradesmen and hawkers; it was far cheaper to have pots, pans and chairs mended than it was to buy new and village women seldom had the time to travel into towns to shop.
