Essex, Constable and Gypsy life

Harlow, Essex, in 1956. ‘Of course a new town built during the genuine austerity postwar years could not compete with, say, Nash’s Bath terraces,’ says Frank Jackson. Photograph: Harry Todd/Getty ImagesAs Professor Judith Okely notes (Letters, 2 July), John Constable does indeed include a Gypsy woman and her baby in his 1828 painting of the Vale of Dedham, but this is unlikely to be as a sign of sympathy. Constable had no time for agricultural labourers, whom he regarded as pot