You mention the name Goddard....so, is that a gypsy name?
Goddard, as listed above, was a name
used by Gypsys in Hampshire and Kent, during 1881.
Fair guess then to say that Bob found them on the 1881 census. Curious how they never reappeared ..... Now; Could
this be a neat illustration of exactly what I just said above? " Gypsys were quite happy to change their names like socks. "?
Perhaps these people were, eg. Penfold's and yet, when the enumerator came trudging up, they simply decided to give the first name that came into their heads? Why else should they crop up ~ presumably living in a tent or wagon ~ for one solitary year? One has to ask this.
My own people were absolute
murder! Hammering up and down the south coast road, year in, year out. Spawning a small army of offspring. Yet absolutely without fail it was the old man who went and recorded the births.
And he was as cagey as all sin about what he revealed as an " Address ". Never once admitted the piebald cob and wagon were his. Most memorable was when he simply stated " High Street ". I can imagine him, eye ****ing the registrar and silently
defying him to ask, " And
where on the High Street, sir? That bloody wagon down the west end? "
