Our Story: The Proud Gypsy Traveller Doncaster Project

It began with families taking their history back

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 was developed in Doncaster in response to the stereotyping of Gypsy and Traveller people—particularly young people—and the damage caused when our communities are spoken about but rarely listened to.

Too often, our history had been ignored, distorted or erased. This project set out to change that.

History in our own words

Run by Doncaster CVS and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the project worked with local Gypsy and Traveller families to explore community life in Doncaster between 1900 and 2000.

Families contributed:

oral histories and personal memories
family photographs
documents and historical records
objects and artefacts
knowledge passed between generations

Community members were not simply research participants. They helped decide which stories should be told, how they should be presented and what the public needed to understand.

That principle—nothing about us without us—still runs through PGT’s work today.

What the project created

The stories, photographs and artefacts were brought together through exhibitions, publications 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.

The project also produced photographic displays, magazines, articles and a lasting online archive. Community members developed skills in oral-history collection, interviewing, photography, filming, writing, social media and exhibition development.

These were not just exhibitions about the past. They challenged the stereotypes shaping the present.

Why this history still matters

When a community is missing from museums, archives and official histories, that absence can be mistaken for evidence that we were never there.

We were there.

Gypsy and Traveller families worked, traded, raised children, served their communities and helped shape Doncaster. The project made part of that history visible—but many more stories remain untold.

Preserving our heritage is not nostalgia. It is a challenge to the institutions, records and public narratives that have too often excluded us.