Palm readings, learn your fortune, Gypsy Petulengro neon sign on Blackpool Central Pier, Lancashire, England, UK, FY1

Xavier Petulengro (8 July 1878 - 16 June 1957), more often known as Gipsy Petulengro, was a British Romanichal horse trader, violinist, businessman, writer and broadcaster, known as the "King of the Gypsies". He frequently broadcast on BBC radio in the 1930s and 1940s, and later wrote regular astrology columns in magazines as well as publishing his autobiography and several books on Romani lore. Life Details of his birth and childhood are uncertain. Sources suggest that he was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, to a Romani family, and probably lived for part of his childhood near Galaţi in Romania, where his father traded Welsh ponies. He also used the family names Walter Lloyd and Walter Smith. According to his own autobiography, he was the grandson of Ambrose Smith (c.1804-1878), known as Jasper Petulengro, the semi-fictionalised subject of the books Lavengro and Romany Rye by George Borrow. In order to support this connection he antedated his birth to 1859. The name 'Petulengro', comes from the Sanskrit 'Petul' meaning horseshoe and 'Engro' from the Romani meaning man or thing, hence 'Blacksmith'. Unusually among Gypsies at the time, he learned to read and write, later claiming that this was due to the assistance of Admiral Arthur Wilson VC of the Royal Navy and his sister, but also with the help of a farmer's wife, Martha Clark, in Whitehaven, Cumberland, where the family spent several winters. As a young man he followed his father into the horse-trading business, and also served in the British army, allegedly signing up after getting involved in a fight with a gamekeeper. In the 1920s, when living in Manchester, he was invited to help re-establish a tradition of Gypsy "parties" at Baildon in Yorkshire, which had taken place in the area for several centuries but which had died out after 1897. In 1929 the annual parties were revived, with 'real' Gypsies attending alongside local people dressed up in costume