The ‘G’ in GRT – Gypsy, Roma, Traveller History Month 2024
Category: Blog
Marie Bowers is a Romany Gypsy woman from England, a biochemist, a technician supporting the teaching of Human Physiology at the University of Glasgow, a doctoral candidate at the University of Aberdeen, and an active campaigner for GRT inclusion. Throughout Gypsy, Roma, Traveller History Month 2024, Marie will be sharing a series of blog posts with CILIPS members, exploring the unique role that libraries of all sectors can play in supporting and celebrating GRT communities.
What’s in a word? The ‘G’ in GRT stands for Gypsy. Gypsy is a contested word and one that outside of the UK is seen as a pejorative exonym. Within the UK, the word has been embraced by Romany Gypsies, and it is used on the census as a box for ethnic ascription in England & Wales. In Scotland, the accepted terminology is Gypsy Traveller. This too is contested by some. But why? I think the reason lies in history.
The accepted history begins in the reign of Mahmud of Ghazni (998 CE), the first ruler to assume the title of Sultan. As the Sultan conquered most of what we now know as the Middle East, his repeated incursions into North India meant that around 60,000 people of Romani origin were forcibly enlisted in his army. After his death, they were expelled from the army, forced into nomadism, and driven from India. In the 1100s, ancient Scottish law recognised the ‘tinklers’: so named because of the sound their tinsmithing. They were seen as separate to the mainstream, with their own dialect and customs. By the 1200s, Roma peoples were found in the territories of what is now Romania, where as slaves, they were forced to work in monasteries, mines and in agriculture. By the year 1515, Romani groups had migrated to England where they were misidentified as Egyptians due to their darker skin. It’s here that it’s believed the word Gypsy was derived: Egyptian, to Gypcian, to Gypsy.
Although it’s not known how many ‘Egyptians’ travelled to England at this time, their presence led Henry VIIIs government to pass the ‘Egyptians Act’ into law in 1530. This law aimed to remove all ‘Egyptians’ from England by banning migration and to require those already in the country to leave ‘voluntarily’. Failure to do so would result in the confiscation of all goods and property, imprisonment, and deportation. In 1554, under Queen Mary, the law was amended and Gypsies who did not relinquish their ‘naughty, idle and ungodly life and company’ could be punished by execution. These executions for not assimilating into mainstream society continued into the 1660s. Although the threat of death for merely being a Gypsy was removed, punitive laws continued, and these can be traced right up to the present day. Against this background of slavery, misidentification, and criminalisation of Roma nomadism, it should be no surprise that many regard the word Gypsy offensive. The fact that the word Gypsy also took on connotations of ‘being roguish’, or indeed outright criminal, didn’t help either.
So, what of the ‘Tinklers’ in Scotland? How were they treated and what has become the legacy of that treatment? In 1895, Lord Tevelyan, then Secretary of State for Scotland, tabled the ‘Report of the Departmental Committee on Habitual Offenders, Vagrants, Beggars and Inebriates in Scotland’. By now, ‘Tinkler’ had become ‘Tinker’ (another racial slur) and the report, in part, discussed how to solve Scotland’s ‘Tinker problem’:
“My object is to have them extirpated as a class and absorbed in the labouring population. That is the purpose I have in view. I think it is absolutely necessary and should be done.”
The State, Church and charities sought to tether Scottish Gypsy Travellers under the pretext of ensuring the welfare and education of their children. They were forced into substandard housing and obeying the rules would ensure they would receive better housing. Thus the ‘Tinker Experiments’ were born. A darker side of Scottish history, the ramifications of which, still impact Scottish Gypsy Travellers’ lives today. The ‘welfare man’ would visit Gypsy Traveller camps and if he saw fit, children might be removed to industrial schools or children’s homes such as Quarriers’ Village in Renfrewshire, with some children being trafficked to Canada without their families’ knowledge. In 1938, Professor Wolfgang Abel, a German Eugenicist, travelled to Scotland to study the Gypsy Travellers where he was hoping to determine specific traits in fingerprints which would enable rapid identification of these groups. The professor also met with the Archbishop of Canterbury at the house of the British Ambassador in Germany to discuss his ‘work’. After the Second World War, Nissan huts were subdivided, and used to house multigenerational Gypsy Traveller families in cramped, culturally inappropriate conditions. Without electricity or hot water, families were expected to assimilate into the local community. But once the locals knew where they lived, Gypsy Traveller children were bullied at school and assimilation wasn’t wanted by either side of the divide. The survivors and descendants of the victims of the ‘Tinker Experiments’ are seeking recognition of, and an apology for, the ‘experiments’ which as yet, hasn’t been made. Who knows what may happen after the General Election on the 4th of July?
My recommended resources this week are all web based. This is so you can research aspects of Gypsy life that are of most interest or relevant to your workplace, but also to underline that the history, culture and heritage of the many groups labelled as ‘Gypsy’ in the UK is too wide a topic for a single blog about the letter ‘G’.
https://ayeright.scot/canadas-little-slaves ‘Canada’s Little Slaves – The Tinker Experiments Child Trafficking’- Dr Lynne Tammi
https://acert.org.uk/blog/2024/01/11/the-tinker-experiment ‘The Tinker Experiment’ – GRT History resources by the Advisory Council for the Education of Romany and other Travellers.
www.gypsy-traveller.org/grthm GRTHM resources from Friends, Families and Travellers.
www.grthm.scot GRTHM resources and events in Scotland.
Next week, it’s ‘R’ for Roma.
Marie