101 More Romany Faces

Here are 101 more Romany faces to add to the original 101 Romany faces, all from my Roman Gypsy family.
This book uncovers the truth about Charlie Chaplin's birth in a gypsy caravan in Smethwick, Birmingham, on the Black Patch. It links the Gypsies of Lambeth and Norwood with the likes of boxer Tyson Fury, singer David Essex, the first Heavyweight Champion of the World - Gypsy Jem Mace, Bostock & Wormwell's Travelling Zoo, a Palmist in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Keomi Gray - the lover and children of Fredrick Sandys - artist, the art of Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites plus the art of Sir Alfred Munnings & Simeon Solomon, Leslie Prescott Kilsby - the founder of Barnes Football Club, authors Hubert Smith & Francis Hindes Groome, the Roberts Harpist gypsy family of Wales, Jack Scarrott - the master boxing booth showman, a Scarrott who survived the sinking of the Titanic and George 'Digger' Stanley - the World Bantam-Weight Champion and the first outright winner of the Lonsdale Belt.
Listed in the census and baptism records under terms like ‘Egyptian’, ‘gypsey’, ‘gypsie tribe’, ‘gypsy’, ‘of no abode’, ‘sojourner’, ‘traveller’, ‘travelling gypsy’, ‘vagabond gypsy’, ‘vagrant’, 'tinker', 'hawker', 'palmist', and even 'beggar and witch'. .
There are basketmakers, chair bottomers, fiddlers & musicians, ‘strolling players’, pedlars, peg makers, bone gatherers, grinders, skewer makers, chimney sweeps & a rat catcher.
Names I've found are Abner, Absalom, Ambrose, Asher, Belcher, Byrewenty, Beechanni, Cain, Charity, Cinderella, Cinnamenty, Comfort, Diverous, Edingale, Eldorai, Elijah, Ephraim, Ezekiel, Evening, Fersidney, Floriana, Freedom, Gilderoy, Hawthorne, HammiTurtle, Honour, Jehosaphat, Keziah, Lemonelia, Levi, Lilbourne, Lorywena, Lucretia, Matilda, Moses, Napathali, Nehemiah, Ocean, Ombrate, Onslow, Parents, Parthanea, Patience, Perrin, Philadelphia, Phineal, Prettymaid, Plato, Phiniel, Reservoy, Right O, Saffine, Salovino, Sampson, Sentina, Spiritima, Synphy, Tiso, Trinity, Urania, Vansi, Wisdom, Woodfine, Woodlock, Xantippe & Zilpha.
Surnames include - Beldam, Booth, Boswell, Buckland, Clayton, Cooper, Gray, Gumble, Hearne, Herron, Holland, Huxley, Kilsby, Lee, Lock, Lovell, Loveridge, Matthews, Penfold, Scamp, Scarrott, Smith, Stanley, Turner, White & Williams amongst others.
Everyone in this book and my previous book are related to each other, either through blood or marriage, however distant that connection may be. They included Gypsy Kings and Gypsy Queens and the famous ‘Norwood Gypsies'. Some emigrated to America and some were transported to Australia for crimes including ‘palmistry’ and ‘highway robbery’. The photographs contained in this book have been cherished and kept safe over the years by the family descendants of the subjects involved. Distant family members have been contacted and the outcome is this second 'family photo album' featuring the faces of our Romany past. This is for us all to keep, enjoy and share with future generations.

101 Romany Faces

This book contains 101 photographs that show the faces from my Romany Gypsy family. They are all related to each other, however distant that may be. This big family roamed across England, spending a lot of time in Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Buckinghamshire. They stayed at all the other 'shires' and Essex, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. They were 'the Norwood Gypsies', 'the Gypsies of Epping Forest' and 'the New Forest Gypsies'. There were Gypsy Kings and Gypsy Queens, fiddlers, basket makers, chair bottomers, grinders and skewer makers. They were recorded in art by Queen Victoria, in books by George Borrow, and in poems by John Clare. Acts of parliament made their lives more difficult and many were arrested as vagrants – even for ‘sleeping in a cart in a public place’. Some were transported to Tasmania whilst others married gorgers and disappeared into the local communities.

The photographs contained in this book have been cherished and kept safe over the years by the family descendants of the subjects involved. Distant family members have been contacted and the outcome is this 'family photo album' featuring the faces of our Romany past. This is for us all to keep, enjoy and share with future generations.

The Beulah Spa 1831-1856 A New Pictorial History

This magical place, once the haunt of Queens and future Kings. Of Emperors, Empresses, Princes, Princesses, Dukes, Duchesses, Mayors, Nobility, Gentry, Aristocrats, Politicians, Writers, Artists and Poets. With its opera singers, musicians, magicians, tightrope-walkers, balloonists, gymnasts, dancers, acrobats, archers, jesters, jugglers, sword-swallowers, military bands, singing minstrels, gypsy fortune-tellers, ventriloquists, lasso demonstrators and a leopardess with dogs. Boasting its medicinal well spring, thatched wigwam, fine dancing lawn, octagonal reading room/refreshment room/Swiss confectionary, luxuriant foliage, terraces, rustic seats, fanciful summer-houses, arbours, heath-sheds, benches, rosery, maze, camera obscura, rustic bridge over lakes with waterfowl, tents and marquees, flagpoles, archery ground, picnic parties, fireworks and grand fetes. Here's a new look at the history of the Royal Beulah Spa and Gardens in Upper Norwood, South London written by Chris Shields. Visitors today, once unaware of the amazing history and secrets held by these grassy slopes, can now view the Beulah Spa History Lectern and Beulah Stone which both mark the exact spot of the Beulah Spa well.