South London Gypsy History

June 2008 is apparently the first Gypsy, Traveller and Roma History Month. As part of it in Lewisham, the London Gypsy Orchestra are playing at Blackheath Halls on June 13th. So here's a bit of South London Gypsy History.

The Gypsy presence in South London is marked in some of the place names, most obviously Gipsy Hill. On a more derogatory note, South Norwood Hill was once known as Beggars Hill. From at least the 17th century to the mid-19th century, gypsies camped in in Norwood, Penge and and Croydon Common, paticularly in the summer months. A 1777 pantomime in Covent Garden was called 'The Norwood Gypsies'.

Margaret Finch, who died on 24 October 1740 at the age of 108 years, was known as the 'Queen of the Gypsies' and lived near the lower end of Gypsy Hill. Her fortune telling was a local attraction. She was buried in Beckenham Parish Church.


According to James Caulfield: 'The most remarkable was Margaret Finch, born at Sutton, in Kent; who, after travelling the whole of England in the double capacity of gipsy and thief, finally fixed her place of residence at Norwood. [She] adopted a habit, and afterwards a constant custom, of sitting on the ground with her chin resting on her knees, which caused her sinews to become so contracted, that she could not extend herself of change her position. [..] The singularity of her figure, and the fame of her fortune-telling, drew a vast concourse of persons from the highest rank and quality to that of the lowest class in life. Norwood, and the roads leading to it; on a fine sunday, resembled the scene of a fair; and, with the greatest difficulty only, could a seat or a mug of beer be obtained, at the place called the Gipsy-house." (Remarkable Persons, 1819)


Margaret was succeeded by her niece, 'Old Bridget, the Queen of the Gypsies' who died 6 August 1768 and was buried in Dulwich college burial ground. She was succeeded in turn by her niece Margaret. Another of her descendents, a Mrs Cooper, was one of the principal fortune tellers at Beulah Spa in the 19th century.

In the nineteenth century, 'the heights of Norwood were the holiday playground of the cockney tripper... Fortune telling by the gypsies was still one of the attractions" (1). Other attractions included the tea gardens at the Jolly Sailor (at the foot of South Norwood Hill), the White Swan, the White Hart (at the corner of Westow Street and Church Road) and the Windmill in Westow Hill. There were strawbery gardens in Beulah Hill and the famous Beulah Spa.

Elsewhere in South London, Samuel Pepys records in his diary for the 11 August 1688 that his wife went 'to see the Gypsies at Lambeth and had their fortunes told'. The church register for St Giles in Camberwell records that on June 2 1687, 'King and Queen of the Jepsies [gypsies], Robt. Hern and Elizabeth Bozwell' were married there (2)

The authorities cracked down on the Gypsy fortune tellers of South London in the late 18th century. In August 1797, police arrested thirty men, women and children in Norwood under the Vagrancy Act. In 1802, the Society for the Suppression of Vice brought charges against the Norwood fortune-tellers. 'Faced with police repression and subsequent enclosure of the Common, the fortune-tellers finally deserted Norwood' (3). Despite this there has been a traveller presence in South London down to the present.

Sources:
(1) Alan R. Warwick, The Phoenix Suburb: A South London Social History (London: Blue Boar Press 1972).
(2) William Harnett Blanch, The Parish of Camberwell (1875).
(3) Owen Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Cultures, 1736-1951 (Manchester University Press, 1999)