Thousands to honour queen of city’s Black

THOUSANDS of travellers from around the world are expected to attend a Handsworth church service in memory of the undisputed king and queen of the gypsies.

One member of the community has predicted that the gathering, to honour Esau and Henty Smith, who died in the early 1900s, and their followers, will be the UK’s largest gypsy gathering for many decades.

It could be even bigger than Henty’s funeral – and that would be going some. The line of mourners who followed the coffin stretched for three miles.

But there is a deeper significance to the gathering.

The September 4 service at St Mary’s Church, Handsworth, rights a social injustice.

Esau, who died in 1901 at the age of 92, was the acknowledged ruler of a band of gyspies who scraped a living on a barren layer of called the Black Patch.

Those who died on the unforgiving parcel of land were buried at St Mary’s, but in unmarked graves.

They were not afforded headstones for fears of upsetting families appalled by the very thought of their furnace waste loved ones being laid to rest next to a gypsy.

At the unique event, the Bishop of Aston will unveil a memorial to the 34 Romanies buried at St Mary’s. The stone, costing £2,000, has been paid for by the Romany Gypsy Memorial Review, an organisation dedicated to