Hi aa1webb , thanks for the welcome.
The exact question I am asking is "For how long has there been a significant gypsy population at Eastwood, Essex ?"
The background to this question is the mystery (in some circles the controversy!) concerning the "cunning folk" of the area, notably George Pickingill (or Pettingale, Pickengale etc), ?1816 -1909, of Hockley, Eastwood, Canewdon and elsewhere.
The man doing most of the genealogical research into this area at the moment calls himself "Bill the Exile" and the relevant part of his site is at:
http://www.deadfamilies.com/Z3-Others/Pickingill-Index-Page.htmYou may find some material that more generally deals with your interests, and more is I believe projected.
The controversy about Pickingill largely concerns whether he was on the one hand a run-of-the-mill village cunning man or whether he had a sphere of influence very much greater than that. The evidence for the latter opinion largely rests on the testimony of one Bill Liddell, so the credibility of Bill Liddell's information is an important issue. He has always insisted that Pickingill was of Romany kin. This was not mentioned by the folklorist who first publicized Pickingill (that was Eric Maple in a series of articles in the journal Folklore, it is available on JSTOR) so it is I think a bit of a test issue as to Liddell's broader credibility.
Maple traces the gypsy connection to Eastwood back to he 1870s. But (for example) you will see from Bill the Exile's page that George Pickingill was apparently living in Tinkers Lane Eastwood before then. The question is, does this add to the circumstantial evidence that Pickingill was of gyspy kin or not?
The Pickingill/Pettingale name appears to derive from "Portingale", meaning Portugal or Portugese, (although that is disputed like everything else on this subject); and there is a record of a George Portingale, "Captain of Egyptians" in Essex in 1611. (George was not then such a common forename as it became..) That is breaking news, so to speak, so I don't quite know how significant it is.....
Fanny Bird and Nelly Button were among the many reputed witches of southern Essex, they're mentioned in Maples' articles and turn up on census records...The "Silly Bill" Spearman Maple mentions ("of the well known gypsy family" or words to that effect) was supposed to live in Latchingdon but I haven't so far found any record of him.
An important article on Cunning Murrell, published in 1900, is at:
http://www.witchgrotto.com I personally first became interested in this subject writing an article on Pickingill for wikipedia; the article is out-of-date now but has some still useful links, it is at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_PickingillI could go on but this will be more than enough!
Best, Jeremy