Scotland’s relationship with its Gypsy Traveller inhabitants is a fancy one. From romanticised to demonised, it will possibly really feel like Scotland is set to “different” this tradition, regardless of its lengthy historical past as a part of Scotland’s story.
On this weblog, Shamus McPhee, an artist, activist and Nacken, takes a have a look at practically 500 years of oppression. Please bear in mind that this weblog makes use of some terminology which some could discover offensive.
Renaissance Scotland
Persecution has frequently visited upon Nackens, or Gypsy Travellers, in Scotland. Time and time once more, we see it the annals of historical past. For the reason that mid-sixteenth century successive purges have been aimed toward eradicating the tradition.
Whereas information present that Gypsies have been initially welcomed into Scotland, the Reformation signalled a downturn in group fortunes. The primary anti-Gypsy legislation was enacted in 1541. Gypsies have been to depart Scotland “underneath the ache of loss of life”.
The yr 1571 noticed the Act of Stringency heighten the punishment for anybody convicted of being a Gypsy. This turned the order of the day for the following 33 years. Hanging, branding, drowning, pinning Gypsies to timber by the ears, lopping off ears and deportation have been all legalised.
In 1603, the Privy Council ordered all Gypsies to depart Scotland, by no means to return, once more, on ache of loss of life. The “Act Anent the Egiptians” was ratified in 1609. Many examples of executions carried out underneath this Act are recounted by Sir Walter Scott in a collection of articles within the Edinburgh Journal of 1817 and by David MacRitchie in his work, Scottish Gypsies underneath the Stewarts. Scott’s listings embrace proof of a complete of 19 hangings within the first month of 1624. It was additionally underneath this legislation that Jamie MacPherson was hanged, together with James Gordon, on 17 November 1700.
From Scotland to Scandinavia
Given the extent of reprisal, it’s recognized that some Scottish Nackens, or Gypsy Travellers migrated to Scandinavia. It’s maybe not insignificant that the time period Näcken, pronounced ‘Necken’, seems in Scandinavian folklore because the identify of an unsavoury water sprite.
Definitely, we all know that Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian Romani attribute their origins to migrant Scottish Gypsies. These teams have been in flip expelled from Sweden in 1637. that is a part of a sample of purges on Gypsy Travellers that may be discovered throughout Europe. In lots of of those circumstances, Gypsies have been ordered to depart and could possibly be executed once they did not comply.
Dying and deportation
The final people to be executed in Scotland for being Gypsies have been Agnes McDonald and Jean Baillie. The 2 ladies have been despatched to their deaths within the Grassmarket, Edinburgh, in 1714.
The Grassmarket because it appeared within the 1820s, 100 years after Agnes McDonald and Jean Baillie have been executed. The final hanging within the Grassmarket happened in 1784. Zoom in on this picture on Canmore.
Dying was not the one punishment meted out at the moment, nevertheless. In 1701, Alexander Stewart, believed to be a Gypsy Traveller, had his loss of life sentence for theft commuted to being a ‘perpetual servant’ in Scotland. A brass collar inscribed together with his identify and crime, in addition to his sentence, is within the Nationwide Museums Scotland.
Gypsy Travellers have been additionally shipped to plantations in British colonies. As early as 1665 there are information of Gypsies in Scotland being deported to plantations in Jamaica and Barbados. Amongst different examples, round 1714, eight Gypsy Travellers have been ‘sentenced to be transported to the Queen’s American plantations for all times’.
Tradition change
Whereas the eighteenth century was overshadowed by deportations and executions, by the nineteenth century, the authorities switched their focus to a clampdown on nomadism.
The Trespass (Scotland) Act, 1865, made it an offence to encamp or mild a hearth on a street or cultivated floor, in or close to any plantation, with out the prior consent of the landowner. It additionally empowered police forces to arrest, detain and current earlier than a Justice of the Peace any perpetrator. Part 3 of the Trespass Act remains to be mostly invoked to pursue an eviction to at the present time.
‘No Frequent Floor’ © Shamus McPhee.
A roadmap to extinction
Following this, in 1894, Sir George Otto Trevelyan, Secretary for Scotland, commissioned an Inquiry into Routine Offenders, Vagrants, Beggars, Inebriates, and Juvenile Delinquents. It served as a catalyst within the drive to “extirpate” Gypsy Travellers – the goal was to eradicate the tradition fully. It was hoped that they’d be “absorbed into the labouring inhabitants”.
This picture, taken round 1906 reveals a Gypsy household camped in Galloway.
The 1895 Scottish Traveller Report drew up plenty of suggestions that will govern coverage thereafter. It advocated the creation of ‘reserves’ to include Gypsy Travellers and that training for use as a instrument to disable the tradition. Youngsters have been to be taken from their mother and father and positioned in industrial faculties or underneath the care of charities corresponding to Quarriers and Barnardos, or on Mars ships (for correctional coaching). Others have been to be shipped overseas to the colonies, primarily to Canada and Australia.
On a mission
Throughout WWI, the Departmental Committee on Tinkers in Scotland sprang up. Initially this nationwide physique was tasked with the rehabilitation of servicemen and their households. It wished to “anchor the tinker” and make him show helpful to society. Quickly the federal government, native authorities and church buildings have been working in partnership. Their objective was to expunge the scourge that they perceived to be a blight on society. More and more, church buildings turned concerned in residence missionary work, striving to reclaim the sinners and banish “the growing evil”.
Semi-permanent compounds, corresponding to that established by The Free Church in Campbeltown, have been being trialled through the winter months. Dad and mom have been inspired to remain lengthy sufficient for kids to be educated out of their nomadic methods. The plan was to “lengthen the time of management steadily” and in the end to settle these households.
Dorothea Maitland, one of many Church of Scotland’s residence missionaries undertook a examine go to to Surrey in 1932. There she toured a camp for Gypsies run by the management committee. This led to conversations between the Division of Well being for Scotland and the Departmental Committee on Tinkers in Scotland as as to if experiments of this type could possibly be utilized in Scotland. The intent right here was to discover a mannequin to forcibly settle and assimilate the Gypsy Traveller inhabitants in Scotland.
Newspaper experiences from the 1910s to the Nineteen Forties confer with deliberate experiments to settle and assimilate Gypsy Travellers throughout Scotland. Councils in Angus, Caithness, Moray and Perthshire all developed plans.
Housing experiments
My analysis into one such experiment established at Bobbin Mill in Pitlochry has revealed particulars of these kinds of plans. I’ve a private curiosity within the web site, as I used to be born there.
Hut primary at Bobbin Mill. © Shamus McPhee.
In 1946 a de-commissioned navy prefabricated constructing was relocated to the location of an previous mill to be used as lodging. The Division of Well being took on the duty of working and upkeep prices on the settlement that these have been saved to a minimal. The lodging was to be intentionally sub-standard. It was feared that something superior would possibly “prejudice the success of the experiment”. The residents have been to be “topic to pretty shut supervision”, and monitored over a twenty-year interval.
Inside a decade of the initiation of the Bobbin Mill experiment, Mr J. Nixon Browne, Joint Below Secretary of State for Scotland, was in a position to disclose in a Westminster debate, that Gypsy Traveller numbers had been minimize dramatically throughout Scotland, from 4,260 households to 345.
Nonetheless with us at the moment
Police powers to forestall tenting, coupled with housing experiments meant that Gypsy Travellers started to vanish from ordinary roadside camps. Strain utilized to tenting via the Trespass Act was additional strengthened by the Prison Justice and Public Order Act, 1994. It bestowed further powers on police attending an encampment to resolve if an offence had been dedicated. It turned illegal to cease, even with the landowner’s permission.
Though the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, permits for tenting, it consists of strict limitations on time and numbers tenting. Below this Act, there’s nonetheless no likelihood for Gypsy Travellers to fulfill and camp as prolonged households at conventional stopping locations.
‘Wild Campers Catch the Lights’ © Shamus McPhee.
Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Historical past Month
The persecution confronted by Gypsy Travellers has modified over time. Expulsion, execution, transportation and legal guidelines in opposition to tenting have all performed their half. Gypsy Travellers proceed to be recognised as one of the marginalised and discriminated in opposition to teams in Scotland at the moment. Ongoing discrimination led to the institution of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Historical past Month (GRTHM) in 2008.
Trying to anti-colonial and anti-racist fashions of working, GRTHM highlights the historical past Gypsy, Roma and Travellers (GRT) within the UK. It each celebrates GRT tradition and heritage, in addition to making seen the tougher elements of their historical past. For info on occasions in Scotland celebrating GRTHM 2023, in addition to an archive of movies and sources from earlier GRTHMs in Scotland, please go to www.GRTHM.scot.
Concerning the writer
This weblog was written by Shamus McPhee. Shamus is a Nacken, artist and social justice activist. Dr Rhona Ramsay offered some educational enter. She is a researcher who not too long ago accomplished a thesis on the absence and presence of Gypsy/Travellers in Scottish museums.
Banner picture: Massive Chill at Bobbin Mill by Shamus McPhee.
