This chapter addresses the relationship between Travellers and central and local government. It specifically discusses the tension between central government's ideology of impartiality and local authorities' desire to remove Travellers from their areas. The treatment of Travellers by central government tested the extent of and commitment to impartial and even-handed government that had increasingly characterised the civil service. From the 1880s, there had been a series of attempts to pass legislation aimed specifically at those living in ‘moveable dwellings’. The moveable dwelling bills,...

This chapter addresses the relationship between Travellers and central and local government. It specifically discusses the tension between central government's ideology of impartiality and local authorities' desire to remove Travellers from their areas. The treatment of Travellers by central government tested the extent of and commitment to impartial and even-handed government that had increasingly characterised the civil service. From the 1880s, there had been a series of attempts to pass legislation aimed specifically at those living in ‘moveable dwellings’. The moveable dwelling bills, with their sanitary regulations and registration provisions, would allow the police to remove and prosecute Travellers without landowners having to bear any expense or inconvenience. The Public Health Act served to confirm the invisibility of Travellers in the eyes of policy makers. The level of resistance to the extension of bylaws to Epsom Down in 1937 was exceptional.