FENLAND
FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY

22 January 2009

Fenland Families

26 February 2009

A Gypsy in the Family

26 March 2009

Members Evening

23 April 2009

Railways

28 May 2009

1911 census

25 June 2009

Out in the Fens -- a visit to Tydd St Mary Church

23 July 2009

Courtship & Marriage

August 2009

No meeting

24 September 2009

AGM & talk

22 October 2009

Lincolnshire Marshes

26 November 2009

Festive Evening – TBC

December 2009

No meeting

FENLAND FAMILIES

The speaker for our well - attended January meeting was Rex Sly, an ex RAF pilot & farmer and now author.

His interest in fenland families began with his own research tracing his family back to the 1600’s.

The family were tenant farmers in Thorney & moved in the 1700’s to Gedney Hill & Spalding. His three times Gt grandfather was a bargee & the rest of the family have moved no further than 10 –15 miles in the last 400 years.

Rex’s first book ‘The Punt & The Plough’ told of life in the Fens & his 2nd book ‘Fenland Families’ told of the trades, business, & professions of the families covering three generations.

Well known family businesses such as Hopper the instrument makers & Franks (originally of German extraction) who were horse dealers & are now well known for their pork butcher shops in Wisbech & elsewhere, Layton’s the dry cleaners & Ladbrooke’s the ice cream makers of Spalding.

Most families had relatives in both WW1& WW2, & it was only the resilience and loyalty of the staff not called up to war that these families were able to continue their businesses. We saw a picture of the WW1 record, written on silk material that belonged to a member of the Goodwin family who were fishermen. Other families mentioned were the Bagleys, tippers & trimmers of coal, the Adam family who were urinal makers, Barnes the undertakers, a family going strong today. In Wisbech the Gibbs family, well known for their shoe shops & today still carried on by the daughter, as is Elgoods Brewery.

The Strickland family worked at Crowland Abbey & Johnson’s were shoe repairers of Holbeach.

Rex told an interesting story of a baker in Spalding who even today bakes bread in the old fashioned coke fuel steam ovens & who was eagerly sort after during a bread strike by the big commercial firms, when queues formed outside his shop to buy his bread.

Rex spoke of new families coming into Fenland who do not follow the traditional trades, but thankfully there are still Fenland Families in the true sense of the word.

Our well - attended February meeting heard Geoffrey Lee tell how he found out, through an Uncle that they had a ‘Gypsy in the Family’ & with the aid of slides we were shown Geoff’s family tree.

We heard how the gypsies came from Pakistan & the surrounding area & spread throughout the world, first landing in Scotland in 1505. The people were of dark complexion and were for some reason referred to as Egyptians. They arrived in England in 1514.

Several Acts of Parliament were passed which made their lives difficult & in 1530 they were banned from entering England & were given 16 days to depart. In 1554 they were threatened with the death penalty if they stayed more than one month, & often accused of being ‘counterfeit Egyptians’ dirty, mischievous, vagabonds & rogues.

The Settlement Act of 1662 meant that the parish had to keep the gypsies. To make sure they ‘belonged’ to the parish, the gypsies had their children baptised in the parish, contracted marriages, & held funerals in church.

The Licensing Act 1697 made life no easier, because they employed themselves as hawkers, peddlers & tin - smiths they had to pay the fee of £4 per annum.

In 1874 children were forcibly taken from their parents & transported.

It was believed that because of their dark skin they were dirty, therefore neglected & inadequately fed & lacked education. This state of affairs lasted up until WW1.

The Holocaust saw Jews, Romany gypsies sent to death camps .

Geoffrey went on to display & talk about their living tents & caravans & how they improved over time, their names, & how they adopted the local names, their various occupations, their strict code of living, their food, their medicines & the skills of bare knuckle boxing, their taboos & wedding ceremonies & their knowledge of horses.

We then heard of several famous people who had gypsy origins such as Django Reinhart the guitarist. Davis Essex the singer, whose mother was a gypsy, himself now Patron of the Gypsy Council, Jack Cooper the boxer & Michael Caine the actor.

This fascinating talk was well received & questions were asked whilst refreshments were served.