Francis Hindes Groome

Groome was born at his father's rectory in Monk Soham, Suffolk, on 30 August 1851. He was educated at Ipswich School, where his lifelong interest in Romanies was sparked, and continued at Oxford University. He left Oxford without taking a degree, spent some time at the University of Göttingen, in Germany, and then for six years lived with Romani at home and abroad. He married a woman of Romani blood, Esmeralda Locke, in 1876 and settled down to regular literary work in Edinburgh.{{sfn|Patrick|1912}}

File:Francis Hindes Groome.png

Groome contributed generously and on a variety of subjects to such publications as the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Dictionary of National Biography, Blackwood's Magazine, the Athenaeum, Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia, The Bookman, Chambers' Biographical Dictionary, the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (in six volumes), and as joint editor, with his father and poet Edward Fitzgerald, of "Suffolk Notes and Queries" for the Ipswich Journal.{{cite journal|last1=Jones|first1=Michael Owen|title=Francis Hindes Groome: Scholar Gypsy and Gypsy Scholar|pages=71–80

|journal=The Journal of American Folklore|volume=80|issue=315|jstor=538418|year=1967|doi=10.2307/538418}}

His article on 'Gipsies', in the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, made him known to the world as a "gypsyologist".{{sfn|Patrick|1912}} In 1899 he published his most significant book for folklorists, Gypsy Folk-Tales. These well-annotated collections are a significant addition to the comparative study of the world's folktales. He also co-edited the first three volumes of Gypsy Lore Society's Journal, and wrote nineteen brief articles and collections of folktales for it.

He wrote a number of books including a novel of Romani life, an English–Scottish border history, a sketch of his father and Fitzgerald, and an autobiographical account of his time living with the Romani.

Groome was a sub-editor of Chambers's Encyclopaedia; joint-editor of the 1897 edition of Chamber's Dictionary of Biography.{{cite encyclopedia|title=Authors who contributed articles to Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th and 10th Editions|url=http://www.1902encyclopedia.com/contributors/authors-22.html|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica Contributors|access-date=6 July 2012}}

A singularly alert, swift, and eager intellect, he was unwearied in research, impatient of anything less than precision, a frank and fearless critic; thoroughly at home in wide fields of historical and philological research, and in some of them a master.{{sfn|Patrick|1912}} He was nicknamed the “Tarno Rye”.{{cite book|last=Watts-Dunton|first=Theodore|title=Old Familiar Faces|year=1916|publisher=The Atheneum Press|location=London, England|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27025/27025-h/27025-h.htm#page277}}

Groome died on 24 January 1902, aged 50, in London. He was buried at Monk Soham, Suffolk.{{sfn|Patrick|1912}}

In October 1901, Groome's library of books, letters, and manuscripts bearing upon the study of the Romani was purchased by the Boston Athenæum. The collection comprises over one hundred volumes, some which are rare, and others contain rare tracts and magazine articles. There are also Groome's own books with his marginal additions, over thirty volumes of manuscript notes, lectures, and his correspondence with M. Paul Bataillard, the eminent French student of the Romani, covering the years 1872 to 1880.{{cite web|url=http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/node/512|title=April 2010, Volume 4, Issue 4|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150617190041/http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/node/512|archive-date=17 June 2015|df=dmy-all}}{{cite web|url=http://catalog.bostonathenaeum.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=36592|title=Athena Holdings Information}}

Books and articles written on the Romani People:

• The Gipsies: Reminiscences and Social Life of this Extraordinary Race (1881) [https://books.google.com/books?id=lCk1AQAAIAAJ Google Books]
• In Gipsy Tents (1881) [https://books.google.com/books?id=S1HYAAAAMAAJ Google Books]
• Gipsy folk-tales : A Missing Link (1888) [http://catalog.bostonathenaeum.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=396111 Athenaeum catalog]
• The Influence of the Gypsies on the Superstitions of the English folk. (1892) [http://catalog.bostonathenaeum.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=381406 Boston Athenaeum catalog]
• Tobit and Jack the Giant-Killer (1898) [http://catalog.bostonathenaeum.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=381490 Boston Athenaeum catalog]
• Gypsy Folk-tales (1899) [https://archive.org/details/gypsyfolktales00groogoog Internet Archive]
• Antonio de Solario (undated) [http://catalog.bostonathenaeum.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=400419 Boston Athenaeum catalog]

Other non-fiction:

• The Only Darter: a Suffolk clergyman's reminiscence [http://catalog.bostonathenaeum.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=381405 Boston Athenaeum catalog]
• Two Suffolk Friends (1895) [https://books.google.com/books?id=DUU3AAAAMAAJ Google Books]
• Edward FitzGerald: an Aftermath (1902) [https://books.google.com/books?id=3tECDUZDArkC&q=Edward+FitzGerald:+an+aftermath Google Books]
• A Short Border History 1887 [https://books.google.com/books?id=ioYknQEACAAJ&q=A+Short+Border+History+groome Google Books]

Fiction:

• Kriegspiel: The War Game (1896) [https://archive.org/details/kriegspielwarga00groogoog Internet Archive]

Editor:

• Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: a Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical, and Historical
• Lavengro (1901 edition)
• Gypsy Lore Society Journal, Volume 1–3
• Chamber's Biographical Dictionary (1897 edition)

{{Reflist}}

• {{A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature}}
• {{cite DNB12|wstitle=Groome, Francis Hindes|first=David|last=Patrick}}

{{wikisource-author}}

{{Commons category-inline}}

• [http://www.scottish-places.info/people/famousfirst1334.html Biography] at the Gazetteer for Scotland
• {{Gutenberg author |id=9401| name=Francis Hindes Groome}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Francis Hindes Groome}}

{{Authority control}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2017}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Groome, Francis Hindes}}

Category:1851 births

Category:1902 deaths

Category:People from Mid Suffolk District

Category:Romani studies scholars

Category:English folklorists

Category:English lexicographers

Category:British academic journal editors

Category:People educated at Ipswich School

Category:19th-century British lexicographers