Dr Dora Esther Yates (1879-1974) was Honorary Secretary of the Gypsy Lore Society from 1935 and Editor of the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society 1955-1973. She was also Curator of the Scott Macfie Gypsy Collection 1945-1974 and author of the Collection's printed catalogue (University of Liverpool, 1936).

Liverpool-born Dora Yates devoted her life to scholarship and enjoyed a distinguished academic career of which her vast philological work in Gypsy studies formed only a part. In 1900 Dora Yates became the first Jewish woman to be awarded an MA (in English Literature) by an English university, and she was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate of Literature by the University of Liverpool in 1963 in recognition of her achievements in many fields of scholarship. Before and during the Second World War she was also Secretary of the University Refugees Committtee. After her official retirement from the University in 1945, Dora was appointed Curator of the Scott Macfie Gypsy Collection, which she had largely been instrumental in obtaining for the University Library in 1935. On her death she was the last remaining original member of the Gypsy Lore Society, having joined in 1907 when Macfie engineered its revival, and continued her work for the society from these early days until her death in 1974.