Twentieth century policies affecting Gypsy/Traveller communities in Scotland: archival research

2. Historical Context

Introduction

This chapter begins at a similar point to other studies in focusing upon the presence of Gypsy/Travellers in Scottish history,^[42] with a discussion referencing the earliest mentions of Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland in the historical record. This chapter ends with a brief examination of events in the nineteenth century that serve to set the scene for the examination of policies affecting Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland that are the subject of this report.^[43]

A Brief History

Despite being treated as outsiders throughout history, Gypsy/Traveller communities have been central to Scotland’s socio-political, socio-cultural, and socio-economic landscape.^[44] There are many publications that outline at least parts of this historic context, but we would especially note that ‘written records of travelling metal-smiths, or ‘tinklers’,^[45] extend as far back as the twelfth century’^[46] and that it is very possible that there were people maintaining a nomadic way of life in Scotland even prior to such records.^[47] For a significant portion of history there have been policies in place that have negatively affected Gypsy/Traveller communities in Scotland. The first significant example, known from the historical record, of anti-Gypsy/Traveller laws in Scotland came into force in a 1541 order of expulsion of Gypsies ‘on pain of death’.^[48] This act marked the beginning of a sustained period of discriminatory legislation against Gypsy/Travellers, often referred to at the time by variants of the name ‘Egyptians’ (sometimes spelled Egiptianis), due to a mistaken belief that their place of origin was Egypt. Four acts of parliament were enacted and seven proclamations made between 1573 and 1625 that aimed to criminalise the existence of Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland by heavily regulating their interactions with other members of society and classifying their business activities as illegal.^[49] In 1573, a privy council proclamation placed a ‘charge upon the Egiptianis’, ordering Gypsy/Travellers to either cease their tendency to ‘wander up and doun this realme’ or leave Scotland.^[50] In order to prevent Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland from receiving charitable relief, poor laws passed in 1575 and 1579 classified ‘the idle people calling themselves Egyptians’ as ‘strong and idle beggars’. Punishment for being caught was to have ‘their ears cut off and banished from the country; and if thereafter they be found again, that they be hanged.’^[51] By 1593, amid the witch-craze in Scotland at that time, Gypsy/Travellers were described as ‘thieves, witches and abusers of the people’ though we did not uncover any evidence during the research process that Gypsy/Travellers were tried under the 1563 Witchcraft Act.^[52] These discriminatory policies culminated in the 1609 Act regarding Egyptians, which ordered Gypsy/Travellers to ‘pass out of this kingdom and remain perpetually forth thereof and never to return within the same under the pain of death.’^[53] Another act passed in 1616 reaffirmed the provisions of the 1609 Act.^[54] As Tyson writes:^[55]

“The 1609 act did not so much create a new offence as make the status of being a ‘known Egyptian’ sufficient evidence of theft, without requiring proof of a specific criminal act. It allowed any subject to arrest a suspected Gypsy and act as pursuer (prosecutor).”

This was a time of punitive sanctions against groups deemed to be outside of society,^[56] however the statute against Gypsy/Travellers was exceptionally discriminatory and was, according to 18th-century commentator David Hume, “so dangerous and so unusual a process“.^[57] Further accounts during this time of the ways in which prejudice against Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland continued to manifest include the 1624 trial of eight Gypsy/Traveller men that took place in Roslin (near Edinburgh) for violating the expulsion order that was in place.^[58] Even though the Privy Council noted that the men had been living peacefully in the community and were accepted by their neighbours, they were hanged on January 29th, and their wives and children were similarly charged by the Court ”for the same offence of being “Egyptians””.^[59] Later, in 1669, magistrates granted a group of Edinburgh merchants' permission to transport a saleable outward cargo on the Charles of Leith, including “any loose beggars and gypsies” that Scottish magistrates could round up.^[60] Also illustrating the extent to which Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland were treated as second-class citizens in the eyes of the law, Lord John Lauder, commenting on the 1678 execution of Robert Faw, noted that:

“The probation was very slender, the witnesses not deponding [sic] positively he was the very man; yet it was thought sufficient against such cattle, for the being a known Ægyptian is death by our Acts of Parliament.^[61]”

In 1714, the last people to be executed in Scotland for simply existing as Gypsy/Travellers were two women, Agnes McDonald and Jean Baillie, who were sent to their deaths that same year at the Grassmarket in Edinburgh.^[62] Throughout that century banishment, transportation to the Americas, and forced labour in factories and labour colonies continued to be used as punishment against Gypsy/Traveller communities in Scotland.^[63] By 1783, most of this legislation had been repealed^[64] but it had already significantly impacted Gypsy/Traveller communities in Scotland, forcing at least some communities to assimilate, by changing their way of life to one more closely resembling the ‘settled’ community, and denying their identity as Gypsy/Travellers for fear of retribution.^[65] As this report will demonstrate, whilst not mentioning Gypsy/Travellers specifically, additional legislation,[66] continued to impact the Gypsy/Traveller population in Scotland, forcing sedentarism and assimilating them into ‘settled’ society.^[67] It should also be noted at this point that what is evidenced in this report is in keeping with a wider discussion of the ways in which discrimination against nomadic peoples has taken place and can similarly be seen within the life stories of other marginalised peoples including Roma in mainland Europe,^[68] the Indigenous peoples of North America,^[69] the Māori of New Zealand[70] and the Sami people of Northern Europe.^[71]

Chapter Summary

This chapter has briefly examined the history of Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland, centring on the period between the 16th to nineteenth centuries. The focus of this report is 20th century policies affecting Gypsy/Traveller communities in Scotland. However, to fully understand the evidence upon which this report is based, we must also understand its historical, social, political, economic and cultural context. As evidenced in this chapter, much of this context is discriminatory, and reliant on the state and other governing bodies intervening into the lives of Scottish Gypsy/Travellers. This report now turns to an outline and analysis of the evidence of the role of the UK government and the Scottish Office in the TE.