Gypsy Roma and Traveller History Month
An exhibition celebrating Gypsy Roma and Traveller History Month.
Gypsy Roma and Traveller History Month Exhibition
An exhibition celebrating Gypsy Roma and Traveller History Month 2023, featuring a selection of photographs by Brian Morgan MA, MBA, who is a fine art photographer and Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.
Accompanying exhibition cases display photographs, letters, books and documents associated with the Gypsy Roma and Traveller communities and Appleby Horse Fair.
Gypsy Roma and Traveller History Month Exhibition
An exhibition celebrating Gypsy Roma and Traveller History Month 2023, featuring a selection of photographs by Brian Morgan MA, MBA, who is a fine art photographer and Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.
Accompanying exhibition cases display photographs, letters, books and documents associated with the Gypsy Roma and Traveller communities and Appleby Horse Fair.
Exhibition case 1
Dora Yates, bibliographer, linguist and Romani scholar was Secretary of the Gypsy Lore Society for many years after its revival in 1922. These letters are some of her correspondence with Walter Lloyd, whose account of meeting her and of being inspired to forge his own relationships with Roma people is recounted in the film Romani Rai which is the work of his son, filmmaker Tom Lloyd.
Exhibition case 2
Traveller communities with their own distinct traditions and histories have emerged from all four corners of the British Isles, though not all are Romani in origin. There are the Kale (Welsh Roma), Pavees or Mincéirs (Irish Travellers, ethnically distinct from Roma), various different communities of Scottish Travellers, and Romanichal (English Travellers).
Exhibition case 3
A fairly recent, popular development has been the ghost-written Gypsy memoir. Several can be seen here, featuring two particularly famous recent examples by the self-styled ‘Gypsy King’ of Morecambe, Tyson Fury, and his wife, Paris Fury.
Exhibition case 4
The Appleby Horse Fair, just fifty miles up the road from Lancaster University in the Cumbrian town of Appleby-in-Westmoreland, is said to be the biggest, and possibly oldest, annual gathering of Gypsies and Travellers in Europe. This year it takes place June 8th-14th. Many bow-top horse-drawn wagons and more modern caravan-trailers can be seen locally in May and early-June as Travellers make their way to the Fair.
Exhibition case 5
Texts: G H Borrow’s Lavengro (1851); J Hooper’s Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration: Norwich, July 5th, 1913 (1913); W Starkie’s In Sara’s Tents (1953); J Seymour’s (ed.) The Book of Boswell: Autobiography of a Gypsy (1970); C H Ward-Jackson and D E. Harvey’s The English Gypsy Caravan: Its Origins, Builders, Technology and Conservation (1972); B S Vesey-Fitzgerald’s Gypsies of Britain (1973); D E Harvey’s The Gypsies: Waggon-Time and After (1979); A Sampson’s The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest for a Family Secret (1997)
Appleby Horse Fair Images
Photographs by Brian Morgan
Appleby Horse Fair Images
Photographs by Brian Morgan
Appleby Horse Fair Images
Photographs by Brian Morgan
Appleby Horse Fair Images
Photographs by Brian Morgan
Appleby Horse Fair Images
Photographs by Brian Morgan
Appleby Horse Fair Images
Photographs by Brian Morgan
Appleby Horse Fair Images
Photographs by Brian Morgan
Appleby Horse Fair Images
Photographs by Brian Morgan
Appleby Horse Fair Images
Photographs by Brian Morgan
Appleby Horse Fair Images
Photographs by Brian Morgan
Appleby Horse Fair Images
Photographs by Brian Morgan
Appleby Horse Fair Images
Photographs by Brian Morgan
Appleby Horse Fair Images
Photographs by Brian Morgan
About the Exhibition
This is our June 2023 exhibition of photographs, archive materials, books, and films relating to Gypsy Roma and Traveller histories and cultures. It can be found in our exhibition space under the main Library staircase for the first half of the month.
It features the Appleby Horse Fair photographs of Brian Morgan MA, MBA, who is a fine art photographer and Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. His Visual Essays on Gypsy and Circus Culture have previously been short-listed in the RPS International Photographic Awards 2020 and 2021. He also has a forthcoming book entitled ‘The Road to Appleby Fair’: A Study of Romany Gypsy Culture.
He “uses photography as a visual narrative for illuminating the life stories of those people who for economic, political, and social reasons find themselves cast to the periphery of society. He also seeks to illuminate the life stories of those whose worlds are for other reasons obscured from sight of the mainstream. His creative vision is forged in the idea that all of our lives are diminished by lack of inclusion and that every opportunity should be taken to use art as a bridge between having and not having, between ‘knowing’ and ‘not knowing’.”
Gypsy Roma and Traveller History Month
Established in June 2008, the purposes of Gypsy Roma and Traveller History Month (GRTHM) are to raise awareness of the lives of traveller communities in the UK, to dispel misconceptions, to combat prejudicial and discriminatory attitudes, and to celebrate these unique, rich and diverse histories and cultures. Probably the most famous gathering of Traveller communities, the Appleby Horse Fair, also takes place in June - this year (2023) it will be June 8th-14th - just fifty miles up the road from Lancaster in the Cumbrian town of Appleby-in-Westmoreland. The 'Chakra' wheel is the official emblem of the Roma. It is reminiscent of the Hindu Chakra and, as such, honours the Indian heritage of the Roma people. The sixteen-spoke wheel also symbolises the wheels of the horse-drawn trailers that have traditionally been 'home' to travelling peoples and, according to current Shera Rom (Head Gypsy) Billy Welch, represents "our nomadic heritage to roam freely between heaven and earth." Heaven is represented by the blue background above, and the fields and forests by the green background below. The blood-red of the wheel itself also brings to mind those lost during historical persecutions, not least the 250,000 - 500,000 European Roma murdered by the Nazis during World War II.
GRTHM Libguide