Highland Gypsy Travellers in the News: A Note on Prejudices as Reflected in Nineteenth-Century Newspapers in the Highlands

This note considers some of the reporting on Highland Gypsy Travellers by journalists writing in northern Scottish newspapers in the mid- and late-nineteenth century and illustrates the nature and extent of prejudices against this group. It shows how these prejudices were displayed even by those who advocated for Highlanders, opposed oppression and showed sympathy towards the plight of Travellers. These include Hugh Miller, writing in the Inverness Courier, John Mackie in the John o’ Groat Journal and Northern Ensign, and Thomas Mulock in the Inverness Advertiser. These writers, while rejecting the claim that there were innate differences between ‘races of men’, generally held that some peoples had fallen into a ‘degraded state’ from which it was the duty of Christians to rescue them. This was similar to the approach often taken towards colonised peoples, for example towards First Nations children in Canada. The note briefly considers two areas of legislation which had an impact in Highland Gypsy Travellers – the Vagrancy Act, extended to Scotland in 1871, and the Education Acts of the 1870s.