Alice E. Gillington

Alice Elizabeth Gillington (1863 – 22 May 1934) was a British author, poet and journalist. She published works under the names Alice E. Gillington, Betty Gillington and The Romany Rawny. Gillington published early works of poetry with her sister, May Byron, before moving into a caravan and living with local Gypsy folk. She joined the Gypsy Lore Society and went on to publish books about Gypsies, collections of their folklore, folk songs and singing games. Although she corresponded with the Folk-Song Society, she never joined.

Alice Gillington was born in 1863 at Audlem, Cheshire to John Maurice Gillington and Sarah Dumville Gillington. She was the second of four children with an older sister, Mary Clarissa Gillington and two younger brothers, George William Gillington and John Louis Gillington. Her Dublin-born father was an aspiring clergyman, then working as a clerk, whilst her was mother born in Huyton, Lancashire. The family moved to Bisley, Surrey when her father found a role as a chaplain at the Brookwood Hospital, the local asylum.

In 1892, Alice and her sister published a book of poems, dedicated to their parents. It included some poems that they had published previously in other books. Alice went on to write other poems such as The Doom-Bar, about the Doom Bar sand bank in Cornwall, which were included in A Victorian Anthology, 1837 – 1895.

Gillington produced a collection of Gypsy folktales in 1903, and went on to join the Gypsy Lore Society a few years later. It was there that she caught the eye of Augustus John and John Sampson. She gradually moved into a caravan and by 1911 had fully migrated into "The Brown Caravan," together with her brother John who was in "The Yellow Caravan," and remained living as a nomad for the remainder of her days. Often she would set up camp with different Gypsy groups, sometimes away from them, but her brother was always nearby.

Whilst living with the Gypsies, Gillington published a number of collections of their folk songs and singing games. She attempted to contribute to the Folk-Song Society's journal by sending songs to Lucy Broadwood, though was unsuccessful. Later though, Robert Andrew Scott Macfie contacted her to ensure she kept collecting folk songs.

It is pleasant to know that you will not tamper with them as some people have done, and that however corrupt the Romani may be & however uncouth the rhythm we shall have the exact words the Gypsies sing.

Gillington was secretive about her time with the Gypsies, trying to keep her life with them separate from her old life. She complained in letters about afternoon visitors and specifically stated in one "I never want my Komalesti's to know I write about them." Gillington eventually died of a stroke on 22 May 1934 in Poole, Dorset.

Assembled by Alice E. Gillington