Our Story: The Proud Gypsy Traveller Doncaster Project

Proud Gypsy Traveller did not begin as a brand. It began with families opening suitcases, sharing photographs and trusting us with stories that had rarely entered the public record.

The original Proud Gypsy Traveller project grew from a simple idea: if Gypsy and Traveller people were constantly being spoken about, then our communities needed spaces where we could speak for ourselves.

It began in Doncaster

The project was developed in Doncaster in response to the stereotyping of Gypsy and Traveller people, particularly young people, and the damage caused when communities are visible in headlines but missing from history.

Run through Doncaster CVS and supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the project explored local Gypsy and Traveller life across the twentieth century.

Families brought photographs, documents, objects, memories and knowledge passed down through generations. Those contributions became the starting point for a much bigger conversation about who gets remembered, who gets represented and who gets to decide what our history means.

The project was never only about collecting history. It was about taking ownership of the story.

History in our own words

Community members were not simply asked for material and then sent home while somebody else interpreted it.

People helped identify the stories that mattered, contributed family knowledge, learned new skills and shaped how the work was presented to the public.

From suitcases to public exhibitions

The material families shared became exhibitions, photographic displays, publications, articles and public events.

This included the Hidden History exhibition at Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery and the larger Suitcase Under the Bed exhibition at The Point.

For many people, seeing Gypsy and Traveller family history displayed publicly and respectfully was powerful in itself. It challenged the idea that our communities had somehow existed outside local history.

We were always here

When a community is missing from museums, archives and official histories, that absence can start to look like proof that we were never there.

We were there.

Gypsy and Traveller families worked, traded, raised children, formed neighbourhoods, travelled through the area, settled in the area and helped shape Doncaster. Some stories were remembered within families even when they disappeared from public records.

Why the project still matters

Preserving heritage is not only about nostalgia.

It can challenge stereotypes, give younger people a stronger sense of belonging, reveal what official histories left out and create a record that future generations can return to.

The project also taught us something that still shapes PGT today: community members should not simply provide the photographs, stories and pain while somebody else keeps control of the interpretation.

Community knowledge is not decoration. It is evidence, history and ownership.

From a local project to Proud Gypsy Traveller CIC

The original Doncaster project and Proud Gypsy Traveller CIC are not the same legal organisation. The CIC was incorporated in 2025.

What continued was the name, the values and the belief that Gypsy and Traveller people should have real power over how our communities are represented.

Today that principle runs through PGT’s research, advocacy, training, planning and welfare work, policy work, exhibitions and creative projects.

The work has grown. The purpose has not.

Our communities must have the power to tell our own stories, preserve our own history and shape how we are understood.

The archive is bigger than one page

The original project created a large collection of photographs, exhibition images, community activities and historical material. Rather than crowd this page with every image, we are using that archive throughout the PGT website so the history continues to live alongside the work we do now.