Description:The annual Leek horse and hiring fair used to take place in October every year, and usually just attracted locals from the Moorlands and North Staffordshire area. The German Gypsies attracted a lot of attention when they came to the town to trade at the fair.
They are probably part of a group of Gypsies who were travelling south across England from Cumbria and through Yorkshire during 1904-1905. It seems likely that the group were from Germany but the correct term for them is Sinti Gypsies. It looks like they arrived somehow on the north-east coast, travelled south, probably crossed the Staffordshire Moorlands and on through the midlands. From 1899 the police started to crack down on Gypsies in the Sinti heartland in Germany, which is perhaps why they arrived in the United Kingdom. Between 1933 and 1945 Sinti Gypsies and Roma suffered greatly as victims of Nazi persecution and genocide.
This photograph was taken by WH Nithsdale and the postcard published by his stepdaughter EE Heathcote.