London nomads

1877

This powerful portrait from 1877, taken by pioneering photojournalist John Thomson, shows a group of London nomads gathered around their ornately carved vardo (traveller’s wagon), likely in one of the open spaces at the edge of the city.

Children peer from the doorway, women sit in long skirts on makeshift stools, and men lean on the wooden stairs — their faces thoughtful, their postures relaxed but proud. These were Romani or itinerant communities, often living on society’s margins, yet fiercely independent, resourceful, and tied to deep cultural traditions.

Thomson’s lens sought to humanise London’s poor and misunderstood. Part of his series “Street Life in London”, this photograph challenged Victorian stereotypes and offered a dignified, truthful view of people too often caricatured or ignored.

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