I've been a Gipsying / or, Rambles among our Gipsies and their children in their tents and vans

by George Smith

Question 12. “Do you not think that it will cause the schoolmaster extra trouble; and how do you propose to meet this difficulty?”

I have talked to several schoolmasters upon the subject, and they think that all attendances of travelling children should be entered and paid for at the rate of those children who pass their examinations. Each child who passes the usual examinations costs the country about tenpence per week, and I have been told by schoolmasters that if this sum was forthcoming from the Government for the gipsy and travelling children—which is the system I propose to meet the case of the canal children—they would gladly receive them into their schools; or, in other words, the Government must pay the schoolmaster one penny for each attendance, which should be entered in his school returns to the Education Department; the same course in some respects which is taken with pauper children.

Question 13. “What plans do you propose for granting the gipsy and canal children their certificates of qualification?”

I would propose that the children should be allowed to present themselves at any school for an examination at the usual time; i.e., provided they had made two hundred attendances during the year, and that such attendances had been duly entered in pass books and signed by the schoolmasters at whose schools the children had attended; or that they satisfied the school attendance officers or School Board authorities, wherever their vans were registered, that the gipsy children were being educated privately, or in other ways to their satisfaction.

Question 14. “Do you not think that there will be much difficulty in getting the children to make two hundred attendances during the year?”

No. As a rule, all travelling vans, canal boats, and other miserable dwellings are not on the move more than half the time. Frequently they will stay for weeks together in one place. And I would also, to enable the children to make their number of attendances, reckon two attendances in a Sunday-school equal to one day-school attendance.

Question 15. “Do you not think that parents of town children will object to their sitting by the side of gipsy and canal children?”

In some instances the parents might object to it, as you say, but generally they would not. I think that two-thirds of the children now travelling the country are the children of parents who once followed town and settled employments. If the children I want to introduce to the day schools throughout the country had been gipsy children of past years, with all their evil habits manifested at every step of their lives, I can imagine that strong objection would be raised against their introduction to English school life. Our present gipsy children are, as a rule, our travelling gutter children. I think that the mixing of the travelling children with the town children at school will be one of the first steps towards bringing them back to civilized usages and habits. At the present time gipsy and canal children are the outcasts of society, unknown and unrecognized by others, except by those of their own kith and kin. The mother has at the present time no object to “dress up her children for.” With its introduction to school, natural instincts, parental feelings, love, and hope are brought once more into action, and generally the natural consequence will be that the mother will send her children to school as clean and well dressed as other children are. To have separate schools for canal and gipsy children will not be a workable plan. Sometimes for weeks the teacher would scarcely have anything to do; gipsies especially fluctuate very much.

Question 16. “We should be glad if you could give us additional reasons and facts, and explain a little more to us why you think that vans should be registered annually, or at any rate have their certificates renewed.”

In the first place, I would say that the non-annual registration was, and is so still, one of the principal causes why the Canal Boats Act of 1877 is not so satisfactory as desired. The children living in canal beats under the Act of 1877 really belong to the place at which the boats are registered. This is as it should be, and I want the principle of localizing or identifying the canal children with some place extended to all travelling children living in vans; but that identification must give the parents a choice of selecting other districts or localities from time to time as changes of circumstances and other things might require. Under the present system, when once the boat is registered at a place, the children, under the Act of 1877, belong to that place till they are past school age, and no provision is made under the Act for changes which often occur in a boatman’s life, or would occur in a gipsy’s life. I will try to illustrate my meaning more clearly by taking a case in point as regards the carrying out of the Canal Boats Act, which would apply with equal force to children living in vans. When the Canal Boats Act of 1877 came into operation, either through the strictness or laxity of other registration authorities, more than eight hundred canal boatmen and boat-owners from all parts of the country applied to the Runcorn registration authorities to have their boats registered. Of course they registered the boats, and obtained the five-shilling fees. After a time it was found out that the School Board authorities at Runcorn were called upon to provide school accommodation for nearly two thousand boat children, which they could not do. At any rate, they did not wish to saddle the town with the expenses of educating boat children from all parts of the country, and from whom they received nothing in return; and the consequence is the two thousand boat children whose floating houses are registered at Runcorn are going without education to-day, and their patents cannot, so long as this registration exists, place them in any other School Board district in this country. The annual registration which I propose will give the boating and gipsy parents the opportunity of changing their homes or headquarters without detriment to the children, and the establishment of more registration districts would, I am thoroughly convinced, place the matter on a satisfactory and workable basis. If John Jones during the year ceased working his boat in and out of Runcorn, and took to Paddington’s scented waters, he could, by registering his boat at Paddington at the time of the renewal of his certificate, put his children under the London School Board, which he cannot do under the present system. To meet the case of the gipsy and van children, any sanitary authority should be a registration authority, or at any rate at those towns where hawker’s licences can be obtained.