The VWML contains a plethora of sources relating to Romani and Traveller singers. Among these are items from the Cecil Sharp’s manuscript collection. In August 1907, Sharp encountered 26-year-old Romani woman Betsy Holland in Withypool, on Exmoor, and the meeting is recorded in an ebullient letter he sent to his wife, Constance: “We … were just wheeling our cycles up the hill when … (we met) Betsy Holland, aged 26, … (who) began a murder song that was just fascinating. Talk of folk-singing! It was the finest and most characteristic bit of singing I had ever heard. Fiendishly difficult to take down, both words and music, but we eventually managed it! I cannot give you any idea what it was all like, but it was one of the most wonderful adventures I have ever had. I photo’ed the baby and her …” (Sharp, 1907).

Betsy clearly made an impression, and Sharp even went to meet her a second time, collecting a further three songs. We are fortunate that he, unusually amongst first revival collectors, often photographed his singers, meaning that we also have a pictorial record of the initial encounter. He took several pictures of Betsy, one with the baby mentioned in the letter, who would have been her third child, John. Another shows her seated in a bender tent, with her two eldest boys Thomas and Joseph, aged 6 and 3.

Unfortunately, we do not have a recording of her singing, but the VWML does own two wax cylinders featuring another Romani singer, Priscilla Cooper, whom Sharp met in Stafford Common, East Devon, later in 1907. While the quality of the recordings is as poor as you might expect given their age and the fragility of the format, they offer a tantalising window into a time and place. Digitised versions can be heard on the VWML archive catalogue.

The importance of illuminating the stories and history of Romani and Traveller people in the British Isles has never been more stark. Travellers are indigenous to Ireland and Scotland, and Romani people have been present in Britain for around 600 years. Yet the immense contributions these groups have made to our shared folk heritage are seldom recognised, while popular media portrayals of so-called “Gypsy music” draw on exotic myths and stereotypes popularised in nineteenth century romantic literature and art (Marsh, Wettermark and Hore, 2024). The Library has the power to challenge these stereotypes through its rich records of Romani and Traveller singers.

This project fits ideally with the VWML’s ongoing mission to reappraise its collections at a time when library and archive professionals are interrogating the histories which shaped their holdings. There are many reasons why certain groups have been marginalised in library and archive collections, many of them related to subject thesauri and classification schemes which were often created at a time when Britain was still a colonial power with a very different mindset. However, there are also very practical reasons why the contribution of Romani and Traveller singers to English folk song does not emerge as one searches the VWML archive catalogue; there is no subject indexing and no field which records characteristics such as ethnicity.

The Library, as opposed to the archive, catalogue does not share this problem as it has an inbuilt thesaurus of subject headings. The VWML developed primarily as a library based on the book collection of one individual, Cecil Sharp, and without an archive. When archive collections were gradually left to the library, items were treated in the same manner as library materials, and indexed for songs and dance tunes, ignoring the traditional archival descriptors. During the “Full English” project, which started in 2012, name and place authority files were added so that users could search for people and locations, but a subject thesaurus was not added, and there is still no way of searching for the ethnicity or cultural background of a performer. There is little chance of this being added as things stand, without extra personnel, money and a lot of time.

The only way to find recordings of Romani and Traveller singers is to know some names before you start, which requires further research using the library catalogue, or knowing someone who can tell you. The outputs of the current project aim to overcome this by giving people those names and linking them to records, sound files and photographs without the need for prior knowledge or advanced agency.

The project, in which the VWML works with researchers from the University of East Anglia and the University of Sheffield, began in 2022. The team began by collaborating with Romani poet and academic Dr Jo Clement, who produced a resource introducing some of the relevant collections which is free to access. Using QR codes connecting photos with recordings, the resource was particularly aimed at making the library and archives more accessible for people exploring their family histories. The underlying issues around Romani and Traveller voices in archive collections is addressed in detail in an academic article written by Prof Hazel Marsh, Dr Esbjörn Wettermark and Library and Archives Director Tiffany Hore (2024).

The project’s latest, and to date largest output is a new short film, A Basket Full of Eggs, which premiered at the Ake Dikhea! International Festival of Romani Film in Berlin in October 2025. The film was directed and produced by Lisa Smith, founder of the UK’s first Romani-led production company, Patrin Films and further explores Romani and Traveller people’s role in shaping folk song in England, this time through more personal lens.

The film follows the personal journey of Romani journalist and advocate Liza Mortimer into the archives, where she uncovers recordings and stories of Minty Smith, her great-grandmother, and other Romani folk singers who played an important role in helping preserve England’s traditional folk songs. She was searching for a glimpse of her great-grandmother’s life but what she found was far more than she expected: a rich, interwoven legacy of Romani voices, songs, and cultural influences. “Hearing my family’s songs and voices in the EFDSS archives has filled me with a deep sense of pride,” says Mortimer. “I began by searching for my family’s story, but I discovered a collective legacy far greater than I imagined. This film is a powerful reminder that our stories are not just personal – they are part of a rich collective history that we must now reconnect with.”

This film is more than a tribute to one family’s past. It’s a call to recognise Romani people’s enduring influence on the cultural soundscape of Britain and to give it its rightful recognition. It aims to highlight the central role Romani and Traveller people played in creating what many consider as “traditional English folk song.”

The film has been screened widely in community settings and will be screened publicly at Cecil Sharp House, London, and in various other cities and venues over the coming months. For details of the VWML collections and forthcoming screenings at Cecil Sharp House as well as for details about the research project please contact the project lead Professor Hazel Marsh: hazel.marsh@uea.ac.uk.

* In the UK, the term “Traveller” is commonly used to refer to Irish and Scottish groups with indigenous heritage, while the term “Romani” is used to refer to the descendants of Roma peoples believed to have migrated from northwest India to Europe in the Middle Ages and arriving in England some 600 years ago. All these groups have their own endonyms. For more detail, see Marsh, Wettermark and Hore, in Music and Minorities (2024, 3) or consult the Travellers‘ Times.

Tiffany Hore studied History and Library and Information Studies, and oversees the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library since 2020. She is also a member of the Senior Management Team of the English Folk Dance And Song Society.

This article was adapted from a piece which appeared in English Dance and Song magazine in December 2025 and is the result of academic collaboration with Hazel Marsh (University of East Anglia) and Esbjörn Wettermark (University of Sheffield).

References:

Marsh, H., Wettermark, E., Hore, T. (2024). “Calling out the Catalogue: Romani Gypsy and Traveller singers in an archive of English folk song”. Special collection “Contemporary Views on Romani Music and Romani Music Studies”, Music & Minorities (M&M)

Sharp, Cecil J. 1907. Letter from Cecil Sharp to Constance Birch (21 Aug 1907) re folk song collecting in Somerset. Correspondence, 21 August 1907. Cecil Sharp Manuscript Collection: CJS1/12/18/10/61. Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, London.