G.E.C. Webb

Godfrey Webb was well-known as a leading authority on the Romani race, or gypsies. As a young man, he won the confidence of several gypsy families and would talk with them around their fires, incredibly being allowed to photograph them. This meant that he was able to understand their culture, language and superstitions at first hand. His book, “Romani Ways” is filled with accounts of these encounters and detailed explanations of gypsy life, as experienced by the original Romanies. The follow-up to this, “The Last Romani”, is a novel set at the time of the Second World War about the gradual decline of the ways of Romani life and their assimilation into wider society.

Godfrey worked for the Ordnance Survey in Southampton, where he lived with his wife and two sons. His many other interests included local history, photography, jazz music, railway preservation and model engineering. He built many miniature steam trains, which are still used on narrow-gauge railways to this day.