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

5. The Churches

Introduction

The previous two chapters evidenced the role of national government and local authorities in the TE, including an outline of some of the evidence of dehumanising language and assimilationist ideas that seemed to undergird local authority actions. This report now turns to examining the ways in which civil society in Scotland and major non-governmental institutions may have contributed to this same culture. This report turns first to the role of churches, and especially to the role of the Church of Scotland. The report sets its focus on the Church of Scotland (CoS) for two key reasons. First, the initial tender document written by the Scottish Government highlighted that this research needed to examine:

“... the roles of collaborating institutions/stakeholders including Scottish local authorities and the Church of Scotland.^[245]”

Second, we took on board its status, dating from 1560, as the national Church in Scotland which was guaranteed under the Act of Union in 1707, and thus since that time it has been a central part of Scottish life, and of Scotland’s history.^[246] Within this report, the substantive focus on the CoS, compared to other denominations in Scotland and the role it played in the assimilation of Gypsy/Travellers, reflects the findings based on the significant amount of archival evidence that was uncovered during this research. Additional research may be able to shed light on the role of other denominations and sects in Scotland in the TE.

Within the period under examination in this report, we not only found evidence of regular reports to the CoS General Assembly on ‘tinker welfare’, demonstrating an interest from its central body of authority, but we also uncovered that collective decision-making was made within the CoS General Assembly to assign particular members of the Church – including lay members and volunteers - into supervisory/advisory roles over Gypsy/Traveller communities in Scotland.^[247] Thus research also uncovered two case studies that reveal the exceptional involvement of the CoS in the assimilation of Gypsy/Travellers: the Kirk Yetholm Experiment that ran in the Scottish Borders between the 1839-1875 and is outlined in the next section; and the activities of the CoS Home Mission Committee throughout the 1920s which will be outlined later in this chapter.

The Kirk Yetholm Experiment

“The old Tinker stock in the Borders round about Yetholm have now ceased to exist as tinkers^[248]”

The Kirk Yetholm Experiment (KYE) is the earliest instance discovered in this research of an assimilatory housing and educational experiment enacted upon a Gypsy/Traveller community in Scotland. This experiment, which began in the winter of 1838, was led by Reverend John Baird, who had moved to Kirk Yetholm in 1829, and was personally determined to settle and Christianise the local Gypsy/Traveller population.^[249] There was likely a racial motivation to Rev. Baird’s efforts: an 1847 entry in the Gazetteer of Scotland notes of the Kirk Yetholm Gypsy/Travellers that “they have physical marks in their dusky complexion, their Hindoo features, and their black penetrating eyes, peculiar to themselves, and still broader peculiarities of a moral kind”.’^[250] Rev. Baird remarked in a 1930 letter to James Crabb of Southhampton that local Gypsy/Traveller families were willing to keep their children settled so that they could be educated while the parents travelled and worked over the summer.^[251] The Principal of the University of Edinburgh, George Baird, and the Minister of the High Church requested that Reverend Baird prepare information on the local Gypsy/Traveller population in the form of a report.^[252] Rev. Baird proposed in this report the establishment of a school for Gypsy/Traveller children in Kirk Yetholm, with the expectation that the result of this scheme was expected to be that the children, never accustomed to travel, would be both unwilling and physically unable to follow the “wandering, wretched life of their parents”.^[253]

Following approval by a Church committee on the “Reformation of the Gipsies in Scotland, an early version of future housing and child welfare ‘experiments’ began.^[254][255] By 1862, the scheme had 126 Gypsy/Travellers involved, both children and adults, a significant number of whom were no longer travelling as part of their cultural lifeway^[256]. Following the death of Rev. Baird in 1861, Reverend Adam Davidson took over the scheme, running it until at least 1875, where he noted that few Gypsy/Travellers were still nomadic, although by then the Education (Scotland) Act of 1872 had come into force.^[257] Of the success of the experiment Davidson wrote that it was the education and the making illegal of camping by roadsides and the lighting of fires at night that ensured the Gypsy/Traveller population were forced out of their lifestyle. Later, one RSSPCC Inspector, John Lindsay, referenced Kirk Yetholm when he wrote in 1936:

“The old Tinker stock in the Borders round about Yetholm have now ceased to exist as tinkers, the best of them having all settled down, and the poorest of them having gone elsewhere.^[258]”

The ramifications of the KYE and whether it informed future housing and child welfare programmes still need to be examined. However, KYE does reveal both an early sign of assimilationist housing initiatives to come, as well as the collaborative role between institutions in encouraging assimilation.

Post-KYE Schemes and the ACTS Report

Following on from the Kirk Yetholm experiment, the central role played by the Church of Scotland (CoS) in establishing child welfare and housing schemes, should also be highlighted’. The research findings demonstrate that the CoS was involved in assimilatory housing and child welfare programmes for Gypsy/Travellers at both the national and local levels. These findings challenge previous research released in 2011, in the form of a report from Action of Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS), which centred solely on the roles of individual members of CoS clergy. The ACTS report highlighted that involvement of the CoS in the welfare of Gypsy/ Traveller communities in Scotland only occurred at the local level, as was the common practice among other church denominations in Scotland. Specifically, their report noted that:^[259]

“Although in the research for this report strenuous efforts were made to uncover specific instances of acts of institutional discrimination by Churches against Travellers, no evidence has been found. This is not to say that individual church members have not acted in discriminatory ways and that the Churches have failed to challenge them when they have done so.”

The ACTS report also noted that “Churches’ attitudes to Travellers have often reflected the attitudes of society at large” and that the CoS had established a ‘Committee for the Reformation of Gypsies in Scotland’ (CRGS) in 1838 where Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland would be shown how to live a ‘normal’ way of life’. It goes on to say:^[260]

“With hindsight, we can regard with regret some of the attitudes which the Churches have displayed towards the Travelling Community and, when it occurred, deplore their historic failure to stand alongside a minority group facing discrimination and even persecution. However, it should be acknowledged that proposals, such as [the establishment of the CRGS], were made in the belief, at the time, that they would bring benefit both to the Travelling Community and to wider society.”

This research uncovered involvement of central church institutions, individual congregations and members of these congregations, individual ministers, church employees and volunteers in Gypsy/Traveller lives in Scotland. Representatives of the CoS frequently acted upon their own agenda independent of national government and local authority policy – although sometimes they were guided by or guiding it. Specifically, particular churches spoke with local landowners (some of whom would have also been likely to have been members of the church) to secure land and often approached the government and local authorities with ideas as to how to address issues they perceived as important within Gypsy/Traveller communities, as well as a range of issues between Gypsy/Traveller communities in Scotland and the wider ‘settled’ population. As the Church of Scotland Home Mission Committee reported on 31 May 1927:^[261]

“[a] Central Committee, with Miss Hardy as Lady Agent, is supported by the Church, the United Free Church, the Free Church and the Episcopal Church who each have representatives on the Committee…. Every effort is being made to secure consideration for the tinker on the part of landowners, and so avoid the harassing life of never being allowed to settle in camp for any length of time, but always being moved on to uncertain quarters.”

Evidence was also found of instances when church representatives contributed their opinions to governmental enquiries and worked with local authorities to ensure that certain policies were undertaken.^[262] This includes one of the CoS’s Home Missionaries, Dorothea Maitland, who volunteered for the Church in an honorary role and was especially involved in the question of housing to combat the ‘evil’ of nomadic Travellers. In one letter Miss Maitland describes how:

“It is a difficult undertaking to deal with the swollen numbers of altogether homeless and camping people in Scotland, but I hope we may ultimately find some way of mitigating the evil [emphasis in original] before it becomes still.”

There were multiple instances in the archives of Miss Maitland’s interest and involvement in the situation on Gypsy/Traveller families in Scotland, and especially in Perthshire.^[263]

The Role of the Home Mission Committee

An examination of the archival materials pertaining to the Home Mission Committee of the CoS General Assembly reveals that the CoS was committed to multiple assimilationist housing schemes in the 20th century. Notably, reports from the Home Mission Committee to the General Assembly of the CoS had a regular section titled ‘Work Among Tinkers’, which kept the CoS settled community apprised of news regarding Gypsy/Traveller communities in Scotland during the early 20th century. In the 1920 Report, the Committee they reported their involvement in housing schemes in several local authorities: ^[264]

“[a] scheme for tinker Housing in Caithness has been inaugurated by the Scottish Board of Health where army huts are being utilised ... A similar scheme is being set on foot in Perthshire and the Central Committee has purchased an army hut which they are prepared to equip for the occupation of tinker families, probably in the neighbourhood of Scone. At Campbeltown, an old mill is to be utilised for like purpose by a local committee that has been formed there.”

Gentleman and Swift noted that the “Perthshire project never got off the ground because a suitable site could not be obtained”.^[265] Similarly, there is no evidence of a mill at Campbeltown being used, although near Lochgilphead an old mill was used for some time for the same purpose and in practice these may have been the same schemes. Further research could confirm this.

“I am afraid, however, that the experiment was not a success and the encampment had to be broken up.^[266]”

In addition, through our examination of a range of archival materials (including letters, newspaper archives, Home Mission Reports and other materials from the CoS) we were able to begin to see how churches - both their institutions, clergy, lay employees and communities - were instrumental in the attempted assimilation of Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland through housing and child welfare initiatives.

“the tinker community is not yet ready for a housing scheme: they can only be gradually absorbed into the general population^[267]”

The Evolution of Church Involvement

There was a significant amount of involvement in the lives of Gypsy/Traveller communities by different denominations in parishes across Scotland. This included inter-denominational initiatives, such as the 1924 delegation from the Scottish churches, which included the CoS, the United Free Church, the Free Church and the Episcopal Church. The 1924 delegation was found to have visited the Secretary of State for Scotland in order to urge that the recommendations from the 1918 Departmental Committee be implemented.^[268] A Central Committee for the Welfare of Tinkers (CCWT) was subsequently created between the CoS, the United Free Church, the Free Church and the Episcopal Church, with the aim of overseeing a variety of measures that the churches together would undertake. This included the setting up of a hostel, in 1923, run by the CCWT where twelve Gypsy/Traveller children would board so that they could go to school.^[269] Because parents did not want their children taken from them for any length of time, they were returned to them in April of the school year. This initiative is significant because the CCWT began to see housing on the grounds of ensuring school attendance as a key means of assimilation.^[270] In a clear echo of the assimilationist language that was also used by government and local authorities at the time, the Committee noted in 1927 that:

“The tinker community is not yet ready for a housing scheme; they can only be gradually absorbed into the general population. The Central Committee have, after years of experiment and careful consideration, decided that the way to solve the problem - the tinker problem as whole and the problem of the children in particular - is to set up certain well-chosen areas, encampments.^[271]”

Following the union of the CoS and the United Free Church in 1929, the ‘oversight’ of Scotland’s Gypsy/Traveller population was divided amongst denominations on a regional basis.^[272] The CoS was also involved in the provision of ’encampments’ with mention of supplying a ‘Ranger’ for these: ^[273]

“It was reported that the experiment of an authorised encampment exclusively for tinkers on a farm in the Blairgowrie area had not proved successful. … Accordingly, the Secretary had instructed the missionary to have the Camp vacated and the ground restored to its former condition.”

This also took place at Birnam, near Dunkeld, where a campsite was opened by the CoS in 1934, housing 13 families by 1935;^[274] at Monzie, near Crieff where there was a campsite opened by CoS as an extension of the Birnam site;^[275] and at Guildtown near Perth where again there was a campsite opened by the CoS in 1935, again as an extension of the Birnam site.^[276] By 1936, twenty-four Gypsy/Traveller families were split across all three sites.

In 1934, the role of Ranger was filled by John Hamilton who oversaw the creation of a ‘Tinkers School’ at Aldour in Perthshire (sometimes referred to as a ’Special School’) which was a development that was spearheaded by the Home Mission Committee of the CoS. The school opened on 14th October 1938,^[277] in a ceremony presided over by the Very Revd. Dr. John White, who ‘The Scotsman’ noted said:^[278]

“To-day they were taking an important step...They were giving these dwellers in tents a fixed centre, and that would tend to alter their nomadic mode of existence into a settled family life.”

Even before the school opened, however, there was concern about its operation. A letter from the headteacher of the High School in Pitlochry to the Director of Education written on 29 August 1938 notes:^[279]

“I have reason to believe that I may expect a little trouble with Tinker parents in connection with the new school. One woman is saying that she is determined to send her children to this [emphasis in original] school and that she will have nothing to do with the special school.”

Several correspondences reference the isolated location of the school. For example, the school’s cleaner demanded a higher rate of pay due to the distance he needed to travel, as noted in a 1938 memo^[280]. Additionally, logbooks kept between 1938 and 1941 by Flora Brown, the school’s teacher, indicate poor conditions at the school such as frozen pipes, a smoking chimney, and cracked windows.^[281] She writes in December 1938 that “the temperature in the school room has seldom been above 50°F [10°C]”.^[282] Ms Brown also notes an influenza outbreak at the school in mid-February 1941, while the isolated location of the school meant students had to travel long distances in exceptionally harsh winter weather to attend, while teaching materials and books were delayed in arriving at the school.^[283]

After the establishment of the Aldour School, there is evidence that its existence was used as justification to refuse the admission of Gypsy/Traveller children to Pitlochry High School.^[284] However, it was acknowledged that there were no grounds for Gypsy/Traveller exclusion from Pitlochry High School if their families took up permanent residence and if they “attend school like other children’ – points that raised the question of ‘when does a tinker cease to be a tinker?”^[285] Furthermore, reference is made in a 1940 article in The Scotsman to the school’s role in cultural assimilation:

“Indications have been given that a number of the children wish to enter into careers which will mean a departure from the roving life of their parents, and the object of the school and the interest taken in the children have more than justified the expense incurred.^[286]”

Also, during the 1930s a welfare scheme was imagined for Perthshire that was to be funded by the Home Mission of the CoS. This was inspired by what was considered a “successful experiment tried in Surrey of allowing gipsies [sic] to camp by permit only and under the close supervision of the Hurtwood Control Committee.”^[287] The scheme was envisioned as helping to alleviate the difficulties of living in substandard housing that many Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland found themselves in, due in part to the closure of camping grounds and the forced attendance of children in school.^[288] While trouble with the lead architect of this scheme seemingly stopped it from being put in place, the CoS remained deeply connected to the assimilation of Gypsy/Travellers in the area, exemplified by the presence of various representatives of CoS at the inauguration of the Bobbin Mill TE site in 1947 (see also Chapter 5). One representative of the CoS who was present, alongside two local ministers, was William Webb, who was employed by the Church as a Ranger and lay missionary for eleven years between 1945-1955 and who was referred to as the ‘Tinkers Padre’.[289] Evidence of the role that William Webb played can be seen in a letter from the Country Clerk from Perth and Kinross to the Secretary of the Department for Health of Scotland on 29^th November, 1961:^[290]

“During the post-war years the Council have maintained a close liaison with Mr. Wm. Webb who was, until some time ago, The Church of Scotland’s representative for tinkers. Mr. Webb was succeeded by Mr. Mackay and the Council have been in consultation from time to time with Mr Mackay. Mr. Webb is still interested in the tinkers and both Mr. Webb and Mr. Mackay are of great assistance to the Council in dealing with this problem.”

The Church continued to be involved in different schemes for Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland. In 1955, for example, when the Church involved itself in a short-lived experiment site in Gothens Wood, Blairgowrie which was eventually abandoned and the Gypsy/Travellers who were living on the land forced to vacate.^[291] Serious concerns surrounding the site’s suitability, including its location next to a major road, lack of sanitary facilities, and strong local opposition to the site, were voiced prior to the site’s approval.^[292] Similar efforts were taken to establish a site at Inveralmond in Perth, though this was rejected.^[293]

The CoS continued to be an active participant in the lives of Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland especially but not exclusively in Perthshire, into the 1970s. The largest project taken on by the CoS was an educational project for Gypsy/Traveller children in Scotland, funded by the Van Leer Foundation. Approved by the Foundation as it thought the project had “a realistic and promising scheme for promoting the educational advancement and social adjustment of Traveller children and youth in Scotland” the Church was given £19,300 to execute the first three years of the scheme.^[294] Although the research gathered lacks further specifics on this project, we know it involved the hiring of additional staff, the provision of a minibus as a nursery for three hours each week at one campsite,^[295] and “remedial teaching in two Perth schools and running two children’s clubs.”^[296] The CoS noted that “the lack of sites for travellers and the resulting hardship are a continuing cause of concern’ and the work was limited due to the ‘dispersal of families.”^[297] By 1973, with the ending of the Van Leer Foundation funding, the CoS role in the lives of Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland was changing.[298] Although the project was seen as “valuable and worthwhile,” the CoS in Perthshire recognized that many Gypsy/Travellers were no longer residing there, moving instead to areas in the Central Belt.^[299] At the same time, the CoS recognised that the shifting social work policies of local authorities in the aftermath of the Gentleman and Swift report was causing policy overlap with the CoS.^[300] Due to this, the CoS terminated the Home Mission Committee’s mission to Gypsy/Traveller communities in Perthshire.^[301]

Chapter Summary

Churches, in their institutional leadership, respective parishes, and individual members, can all be seen to have played a central role in 20th century policies affecting Gypsy/Traveller communities in Scotland. The KYE is the first example of the form of housing ‘experiment’ that is of the kind that characterised the TE. Through the idea of a home mission, the role of the Church of Scotland was very similar to that which it undertook in colonial missionary work abroad. Churches in Scotland interacted with other key stakeholders, sometimes advising the government and local authorities, and other times leading the way. What our evidence has uncovered is a continuous engagement that helped to create the conditions that Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland faced throughout the 20th century.