Gypsy Collections on the Web

The Library's Gypsy Collection, which is one of the largest resources for Gypsy Studies available at any institution in the world, now has its own Website. The Collections, which include over 50,000 items, are housed in the Special Collections and Archives Department in the basement of the Sydney Jones Library and online access is being provided to them as a result of a successful bid for funding by the University Library to HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council of England). The Collections comprise the archive of the Gypsy Lore Society and the Scott MacFie and Dora Yates' Collections of books, manuscripts, prints, photographs, sound recordings and press cuttings. The majority of the items in the collection were collected/given by donation during the heyday of the Gypsy Lore Society in the early 1900's and the period leading up to the Second World War.

The Society was based in Liverpool and centred around many members of the University Club including John Sampson, Scott MacFie, Charles Bonnier and Dora Yates. Also included among its members were many leading socialites, scholars and bohemians of the early years of this century, including the English artist Augustus John, the Irish poet W B Yeats and the renown Celtic scholar from Germany, Kuno Meyer. The Gypsy Webpages include photos of some of the leading Romany families as well as photos of Gypsy musicians, horse fairs and wagons. The Webpages also include a history of the Collections, individual pages devoted to the genealogies of some of the chief Romany families, including the Boswells, Smiths, Lees, Hearns and Woods, pages relating to the history and decoration of the Gypsy vardo and links to other Gypsy related resources on the Worldwide Web. The Gypsy Webside can be visited at: http://www.liv.ac.uk/Library/special/gypsy/intro.htm.

Enquiries regarding the Collection can be made to m.ohaodha@liv.ac.uk.