George Smith, the campaigner who had already written about brickyard children and canal boat families, turned to England’s Romany travellers. He visits their tents and vans on Wanstead Flats, in Epping Forest and elsewhere, describing their work, children and living conditions, and argues for registration and schooling; his moralising view of his subjects is often hostile and is that of the 1880s.
A valuable if biased record of Victorian Gypsy life and the reform campaigns aimed at it. Download the free EPUB.