We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
from Part I - Romany Studies and its Parameters
The collections of ‘Gypsy’ materials at Liverpool University Library comprise two separate but interrelated sections: the Gypsy Lore Society Archive and the Scott Macfie Gypsy Collections. The archive of the Society records not only its members’ scholarship, but also Robert Andrew Scott Macfie's phenomenal powers of organization and persuasion; Macfie's ‘personal’ collection, given on his death in 1935, formed a nucleus for continuing donations from members of the Society and later additions. Together they document the interests, research, fieldwork and publications of the main figures in the Gypsy Lore Society from before its revival at Liverpool in 1907 up until the Society's move from Liverpool on the death of Dora Yates in 1974.
The Gypsy Lore Society
In November 1887, W.J. Ibbetson suggested in Notes and Queries that ‘the Anglo-American Romany Ryes [Gypsy gentlemen] should form themselves into a club or correspondence society, for the purpose of compiling and publishing by subscription as complete a vocabulary and collection of songs as may be attainable at this date, and also of settling a uniform system of transliteration for Romany words, which is a great desideratum’ (Ibbetson 1887: 397). In May of the following year, David MacRitchie, a qualified accountant from Edinburgh who had given up his profession in favour of intellectual pursuits, sent out a circular announcing the newly formed Gypsy Lore Society: ‘The President is Mr. C.G. Leland, the Vice-President Mr. H.T. Crofton; and the following have already promised their support:- Mrs Pennell, the Archduke Joseph of Austria, Sir Richard Burton, Monsieur Paul Bataillard, Mr. F.H. Groome, Mr. J. Pincherle, Mr. Walter Herries Pollock, and Mr. W.J. Ibbetson’.
This first period of the Society lasted four years and produced the three volumes of the ‘old series’ of the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, but by 1892 lack of funds had paralysed its activities. The Society fell into abeyance for fourteen years and many of the original contributors had died before MacRitchie's determination to revive it, or ‘set the old vardo in motion once again’, as he put it in a letter of 31 December 1906, began to seem feasible.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
