The king and Patch gypsies
the Black Patch dwellers. Two years ago, they placed a memorial on the Black Patch itself.
The vicar of St Mary’s, the Rev Bob Stephen, told the Post: “There is a certain irony. The High Sheriff of the West Midlands will be present and it was the High Sheriff who evicted the gypsies from the Black Patch over 100 years ago.”
Gypsies first settled on Handsworth’s Black Patch in the mid-19th century and created a community of tents and “vardos” (caravans). Esau’s father was transported to Tasmania in 1850 for horse theft.
Their treatment at the hands of those in power was, at best, shoddy. They were forced on to the land by new laws that closed large swathes of the countryside.
Ted Rudge, founder of the Romany Gypsy Memorial Review, explained: “In the 1850s, there was a lot of persecution.
“They had been travelling around and doing what gypsies do, but suddenly there was new legislation which meant the byways were being looked after differently. Park land was being enclosed, they had nowhere to go.
“In the end they were looking for somewhere to go where they wouldn’t be bothered.”
They found the Black Patch but those who made the wasteland home needed to be hardy.
“It was owned by steam engine pioneer Matthew Boulton and he put all the rubbish from the foundries on it,” said Ted, aged 76. “It was an industrial tip.”
At its peak, the land teemed with 300 families, the numbers bolstered by former inmates of a nearby workhouse. When they were kicked off the land in 1905, the number had dwindled to 200.
“It was massive,” said Ted. “And there was no hostility. The owners of nearby factories looked after them and, because those on the Black Patch couldn’t read or write, they would take any correspondence people to read.
“When they moved there, the Black Patch was the end of Birmingham. The problems came when they started building homes nearby. That didn’t help. They didn’t like all those tents with smoke coming out of them.”
It was generally accepted the gypsies had gained squatters’ rights to the land, but with its value as a development site rocketing, the pressure to evict them increased. There are claims that a legally binding deed to local was destroyed when they burned down Queen Henty’s caravan.
Within their own community, Esau and Henty were all-powerful.
“They were the law of the land,” said Ted, a former BT line manager. “If there were differences, they sorted them out. If you were in a civil court, they would be there.
“Esau’s main work was horse trading. He would go to Birmingham Horse Fair, buy horses, walk them back to the Black Patch, then sell them to the nobs in Handsworth.
“On his death, The Gypsy King was described as a retired horse dealer and when he passed away widow Henty was elected queen. When she passed away, the funeral procession stretched for three miles and, at the church, police had to clear a way for the coffin.”
Queen Henty, who died on January 7, 1907, had been so outraged by the treatment of her subjects and the loss of their homes that she placed a curse on anyone who tried to build on Black Patch.
Thankfully, the planned estate never materialised and, in 1909, the Black Patch was turned into a park.