Alice E. Gillington
British writer and poet, journalist and anthropologist
Alice Elizabeth Gillington (1863 – 22 May 1934) was a British author, poet and journalist. She published works under the names Alice E. Gillington, Betty Gillington and The Romany Rawny. Gillington published early works of poetry with her sister, May Byron, before moving into a caravan and living with local Gypsy folk. She joined the Gypsy Lore Society and went on to publish books about Gypsies, collections of their folklore, folk songs and singing games. Although she corresponded with the Folk-Song Society, she never joined.
Early life
Alice Gillington was born in 1863 at Audlem, Cheshire, to John Maurice Gillington and Sarah Dumville Gillington. She was the second of four children with an older sister, Mary Clarissa Gillington, and two younger brothers, George William Gillington and John Louis Gillington. Her Dublin-born father was an aspiring clergyman, then working as a clerk, whilst her mother was born in Huyton, Lancashire. The family moved to Bisley, Surrey, when her father found a role as a chaplain at the Brookwood Hospital, the local asylum.
In 1892, Alice and her sister published a book of poems, dedicated to their parents.
The public source identifies “Alice E. Gillington” as british writer and poet, journalist and anthropologist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Alice, Gillington and British.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4725835. VIAF identifies the subject as 279583695. The Library of Congress control number is no93006774. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1863, 1934 and 1892.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alice E. Gillington” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.