Policies affecting Nackens (Scottish Gypsy Travellers), Gypsy/Travellers and Scottish Travellers: lived experience testimonies
This independent report outlines the findings of an initial community consultation with members of Gypsy/Traveller communities impacted by historical policies. It was produced on behalf of the Scottish Government by an independent researcher.
Footnotes
1 Kenrick, Donald, and Colin Clark. 1999. Moving On: The Gypsies and Travellers of Britain (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press), p.51.
2 Taylor, Becky, and Jim Hinks. 2021. ‘What field? Where? Bringing Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History into View’, Cultural and Social History, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp.629–650, 629.
3 The Scottish Government. 2024. ‘Improving the Lives of Scotland’s Gypsy/Travellers 2: Action Plan 2024-2026’
4 United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. 2016. ‘Article 1’ https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-convention-elimination-all-forms-racial
5 Tröger, Anja. 2021. Affective Spaces: Migration in Scandinavian and German Transnational Narratives (Cambridge: Legenda).
6 Shaw, John. 2007. ‘Storytellers in Scotland: Context and Function’, in Oral Literature and Performance Culture, eds. John Beech et al (Edinburgh: John Donald), pp.28-48, 29; Braid, Donald. 2002. Scottish Traveller Tales: Lives Shaped Through Stories (Mississippi: Mississippi University Press), p.115, 195; Niles, John D. 2022. ‘Duncan Williamson on Death, Aging and Remembrance’, in Webspinner: Songs, Stories, and Reflections of Duncan Williamson, Scottish Traveller (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi), p.149.
7 See The Statistical Accounts of Scotland 1791-1845. For example, the accounts of Auchterderran (Murray 1791: p.458); Eaglesham (Dobie 1792: p.124); Fortingall (M’Ara 1792: p.455); Kinnettles (Ferney 1793: p.201).
8 Taylor, Becky. 2008. A Minority and the State: Travellers in Britain in the Twentieth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press), p.80.
9 Acts of Parliament. 1908. ‘Children Act (1908): Clause 118’ https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1908/67/pdfs/ukpga_19080067_en.pdf
10 Ibid.
11 For example, writing in protest to the editor of The Scotsman, G. A. Mackay exclaims that ‘to separate the [Traveller] children from their parents would be something like a death sentence […] and would be one of the cruellest and most useless acts’ (‘The Tinker Problem’ 1917: 10). Another contributor to The Scotsman writing after the Children (1908) Act was passed commented that educating Nacken, Gypsy/Traveller and Scottish Traveller children ‘out of their natural instincts and traditions may be a greater form of cruelty than that which it is supposed to cure’ (‘The Wandering Tribes’ 1918: 4).
12 Woodley, Xeturah and Megan Lockard. 2016. ‘Womanism and Snowball Sampling: Engaging Marginalized Populations in Holistic Research’, The Qualitative Report, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp.321-329.
13 I would also draw readers’ attention to a series of BBC Scotland programmes by Davie Donaldson entitled ‘The Cruelty – Stolen Generations’ (2025) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0czw33q
14 Abrams, Lynn. 2016. Oral History Theory, 2nd edn. (London: Taylor and Francis), pp.175-194.
15 Ibid.
16 Niles, John D. 2022. Webspinner: Songs, Stories, and Reflections of Duncan Williamson, Scottish Traveller (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi), p.25.
17 The County Clerk. 1964. ‘Letter to A. D. Jackson on Housing of Tinkers’, Perth & Kinross Council Archives, CC1/H/A3; The County Clerk. 1964a. ‘Letter to the Secretary, Scottish Development Department’, Perth & Kinross Council Archives, CC1/H/A3.
18 Shennan, G. H. 1965. ‘Report by Inspector G H Shennan [Shannon] on his work with the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children; in particular his work in the Inverness area (1930's - 1965)’, Records of the Royal Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (RSSPCC)/Children 1st, National Records of Scotland, Edinburgh, GD409/29/14, pp.3-4.
19 Mazower, Mark. 2009. Hitler’s Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe (London: Penguin), ‘Prewar Germany funded racial science well – as it did the sciences in general – and the Third Reich was a particularly generous sponsor. After 1939, the Third Reich’s racial experts were no longer consulted merely on the health of Germany’s own population but helped to make decisions affecting the continent as a whole’, p.182.
20 Shennan, G. H. 1965. ‘Report by Inspector G H Shennan [Shannon] on his work with the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children; in particular his work in the Inverness area (1930's - 1965)’, Records of the Royal Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (RSSPCC)/Children 1st, National Records of Scotland, Edinburgh, GD409/29/14, pp.3-4.
21 Scottish Human Rights Commission. 2010. ‘Response to Public Petitions Committee PE1363’ https://webarchive.nrscotland.gov.uk/20170513011849mp_/http://archive.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/petitions/petitionsubmissions/sub-10/10-PE1363C.pdf
22 Tullybelton, Lord Fraser. 1983. ‘Mandla, Sewa Singh; Mandla, Gurinder Singh (an infant suing through Sewa Singh Mandla, his father and next friend) v Lee, A.G Dowell; Park Grove Private School Limited’, House of Lords Judicial Office, Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JU/18/243.
23 University of Strathclyde. 2014. ‘Delivering Rights for Gypsy/Travellers in Scotland: Ethnicity Defined in Law’ https://impact.ref.ac.uk/casestudies/CaseStudy.aspx?Id=42372
24 United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. 2016. ‘Article 1’ https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-convention-elimination-all-forms-racial
25 For instance, the 2022 census report noted that there were increases across several minority ethnic groups but that the ‘Gypsy/Traveller’ numbers for 2022 are not fully comparable with 2011 (‘Ethnic Group’, Figure 5) https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/2022-results/scotland-s-census-2022-ethnic-group-national-identity-language-and-religion/#section3.
26 Scottish Parliament Equal Opportunities Committee. 2001. ‘Inquiry into Gypsy Travellers and Public Sector Policies’, Recommendations 1-3 https://webarchive.nrscotland.gov.uk/20170812120010/http://archive.scottish.parliament.uk//business/committees/historic/equal/reports-01/eor01-01-vol01-02.htm.
27 Stewart, Sheila. 2002. ‘Cant: A Scottish Traveller’s Perspective’, in Travellers and Their Language, eds. John M. Kirk and Dónall P. Ó Baoill (Belfast: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona), pp.188–191, 188.
28 Reid, Willie. 1997. ‘Scottish Gypsies/Travellers and the Folklorists’, in Romani Culture and Gypsy Identity, eds. Thomas Acton and Gary Mundy (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press), pp.31–39, 32.
29 In terms of etymology, according to The Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL), the word ‘tinker’ – variously spelled tynklare, tynclare, tynekler, tinklair, tinclar, tinkard – first appears in Scotland as a surname around 1175 (DSL). Although the DSL notes that the origin of the word is uncertain, it represents ‘a worker in metal, a craftsman who makes or repairs metal artefacts, a tinker’ (https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/tynklar). As nomenclature for valued members of Scotland’s informal pre-industrial economies, the term ‘Tinker’ does not appear to become pejorative in documentary evidence until the late eighteenth century. See The Statistical Accounts of Scotland 1791-1845, for examples, and cited with details above in endnote 7.
30 Taylor, Becky. 2008. A Minority and the State: Travellers in Britain in the Twentieth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press), p.172-173; McPhee, Shamus. 2021. ‘The Uglier Side of Bonnie Scotland: The Tinker Housing Experiments’, International Journal of Roma Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp.180–208.
31 McPhee, Shamus. 2021. ‘The Uglier Side of Bonnie Scotland: The Tinker Housing Experiments’, International Journal of Roma Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp.180–208, 205.
32 Savage, Jan. 2023. Scottish Human Rights Commission https://www.scottishhumanrights.com/blog/commission-hears-the-human-rights-concerns-of-the-gypsy-traveller-community-in-scotland/
33 Alba Party’s National Executive Committee https://www.albaparty.org/alba_calls_for_apology
34 The Scottish Government. 2024. ‘Improving the Lives of Scotland’s Gypsy/Travellers 2: Action Plan 2024-2026’ https://www.gov.scot/publications/improving-the-lives-of-scotlands-gypsy-travellers-2-action-plan-2024-2026/