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HISTORY
Lindsey Tydeman from The Keep in Falmer has been looking back at the career of Edwin Lulham and his documentation of travellers’ lives which offers a fascinating glimpse of bygone days
Lore Society. In his time away from Sussex County Hospital in Brighton where he worked as ‘dresser’ for the Senior Surgeon Dr Blaker, he travelled the south east, taking hundreds of photographs. Many of these he made into glass lantern slides and used them to accompany talks on rural life and customs. Although many of the pictures are posed to show the more attractive side of the travellers’ lives, they are, nonetheless, an authentic resource. Families are shown gathered around the cooking pot, on blankets outside makeshift shelters, making music with accordions around the camp fire, cuddling puppies and watching a boxing match. In the collection are at least two images showing Dr Lulham himself, stylishly dressed in a three-piece suit and trilby hat. In the first, he is examining a baby (R/L/39/2/1); in the second, he is bandaging the arm of a traveller woman (R/L/39/2/2). Lulham was a man who responded passionately to natural beauty. He wrote poetry inspired by the Sussex countryside, including
The Doctor & the Travellers
P
ipe in hand and half-smiling, a female traveller pauses to look at the camera. She wears an apron of sacking and her skin and tanned face tell us that she has spent much of her life outside. The rolled-up sleeves suggest that she has only sat down at the insistence of the photographer. Archivists at The Keep think this superb
colour photograph (ref R/L/39/1/11) was taken during the 1920s, possibly by a doctor called Edwin Lulham. Born in 1865, he was fascinated by travellers and their distinct culture and became an honorary member of the Gypsy
He was fascinated by travellers and their distinct culture October 2021 | SUSSEX LIVING 135
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