'The Tinkler-Gypsies' is a fascinating mixture of
folk tale, popular anecdote, historical research and social
observation which McCormick described as 'some gleanings along a
literary Gypsy by-path.' In it he looked at the origins of the
area's Travellers and explored the myth and reality of Billy
Marshall, the self-styled King of the Tinklers who, together with
his band of Travellers, was the focus of many Galloway folktales.
But the main value of the book today is its depiction of Traveller
life in the early years of the 20th century. McCormick visited
Traveller camps, talked to individual Travellers and listened to
their tales. He also tried to record the 'cant' or dialect of the
Galloway Travellers and found many words related to Romany, the
Gypsy language. This convinced McCormick that Galloway's Travellers
shared a similar cultural background with the Gypsy communities of
England and Europe and led him to coin the term
'Tinkler-Gypsy.'
Traveller families like the Marshalls, MacMillans, Kennedies and
Stewarts had been in Galloway for generations. Surviving on the
margins of society, they earned a living through hawking, horse
dealing, making and mending pots and pans, basket-making, horning,
cockling, shellfishing and seasonal farm work. Most local
Travellers had a permanent winter base, often in a house, but in
spring they took to the road, selling their goods and labour as
they moved through Galloway, and coming together with other
Travellers at some of the region's long established camp
sites.
Andrew McCormick (1867-1956) was a successful lawyer, a member of
Newton Stewart town council and Provost of the burgh. How did
someone like this, a pillar of Edwardian middle class
respectability, develop such a fascination for Travelling
communities? Perhaps by studying and writing about Travellers he
was able to escape, at least in spirit, from some of the social
constraints of small town Scotland. 'I have grown Gypsy-like,' he
wrote in the book's Preface, 'for I have roamed about far and near
to rescue and record some of the meagre information still
obtainable about our tinkler-gypsies.'
A genuine interest in Traveller society can be traced back to
George Borrow who wrote about and occasionally lived with the
English Gypsies. His autobiographical works 'Lavengro' (1851) and
'Romany Rye' (1857) were hugely popular and in 1888 The Gypsy Lore
Society was formed to promote the study of Gypsy culture. McCormick
was influenced by Borrow and the 'gypsyologists' and was obviously
keen to continue their work by looking at Traveller communities in
his native Galloway.
One of the delights of 'The Tinkler-Gypsies of Galloway' is its
extensive use of illustrations, including a large number of
photographs taken by McCormick himself. In 1999 Andrew McCormick's
daughter, Margaret, came to Stranraer Museum with a collection of
over 100 glass negatives, lantern slides and prints which had just
been found in a safe at the firm of McCormick and Nicholson in
Newton Stewart. These were some of the original images used in 'The
Tinkler-Gypsies'. Miss McCormick readily gave her permission for
the collection to be copied by the Dumfries and Galloway Museums
Service and a selection is reproduced in this booklet. Passages
from 'The Tinkler-Gypsies of Galloway' are shown in
italics.
