Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
For graphs A, B and a positive integer r, the relation means that whenever Δ is an r-colouring of the vertices of A, then there is an embedding ϕ of B into A such that Δ ∘ ϕ is constant. A class of graphs has the Ramsey property if, for every , there is an such that . For a given finite graph G, let Forb(G) denote the class of all finite graphs which do not embed G. It is known that, if G is 2-connected, then Forb() has the Ramsey property, and Forb(G) has the Ramsey property if and only if Forb(G) also has the Ramsey property. In this paper we show that if neither G nor its complement is 2-connected, then either (i) G has a cut point adjacent to every other vertex, or (ii) G has a cut point adjacent to every other vertex except one. We show that Forb(G) has the Ramsey property if G is a path of length 2 or 3, but that Forb(G) does not have the Ramsey property if (i) holds and G is not the path of length 2.