Was John Bunyan a Gipsy?

by James Simson

The Gipsy subject will not always remain in its present position. It will sooner or later have a resurrection, when some one will see who were the “goats” on the occasion. Bunyan will occupy a very important position in what is now represented by the following extract from my Disquisition on the Gipsies, published in London in 1865:—

“It is beyond doubt that there cannot be less than a quarter of a million of Gipsies in the British Isles, who are living under a grinding despotism of caste; a despotism so absolute and odious that the people upon whom it bears, cannot, as in Scotland, were it almost to save their lives, even say who they are!” (p. 440).

III. [13]

The main thing to be considered in regard to Mr. Brown is to ascertain his motive for investigating the question whether or not John Bunyan was of the Gipsy race, and the steps he took to that end. I am satisfied that his only motive, from first to last, has been to get rid, under any circumstances, of what he considers a stigma cast on Bunyan’s memory. He is apparently entirely ignorant of the subject of the Gipsies, and will listen to nothing that bears on Bunyan’s nationality. How then does it happen that he should step out into the world and say so positively that Bunyan was not of the Gipsy race? His first “proof” was the discovery that the name of Bunyan existed in England before the Gipsies arrived in it, so that on that account John Bunyan’s family could not have been Gipsies, but a broken-down branch of an aristocratic family! That “proof” proving worthless, he has recourse to what he finds to have been Bunyan’s ancestor, apparently on the “native side of the house,” viz.: Thomas Bonyon, who succeeded his father, William Bonyon, in 1542, to the property of “Bunyan’s End,” that is, a cottage and nine acres of land, about a mile from Elstow Church. This Thomas is described as “a labourer, and his wife as a brewer of beer and ‘a baker of human bread.’” In my Disquisition on the Gipsies I said in regard to John Bunyan:—

“Beyond being a Gipsy it is impossible to say what his pedigree really was. His grandfather might have been an ordinary native, even of fair birth, who, in a thoughtless moment, might have ‘gone off with the Gipsies;’ or his ancestor on the native side of the house might have been one of the ‘many English loiterers’ who joined the Gipsies on their arrival in England, when they were ‘esteemed and held in great admiration’” (p. 518). And, “Let a Gipsy once be grafted upon a native family and she rises with it; leavens the little circle of which she is the centre, and leaves it and its descendants for all time coming Gipsies” (p. 412). [14a]

Thomas Bonyon seems to have been born about 1502, [14b] and was apparently of the native race, as was probably his wife; but between him and Thomas (John’s grandfather), whose will was dated in 1641, there were doubtless several generations. Without asking with whom each generation of this family married, Mr. Brown says:—“Here, then, we have a family living certainly in the same cottage and cultivating the same land from 1542 to 1641, and probably much earlier, a fact which seems to me utterly fatal to the theory of Gipsy blood”—assuming that the blood of the family through marriage was native English all the way down; and that they cultivated the nine acres of land, and did not rent or sell it, for Thomas Bunyan by his will, dated in 1641, leaves “the cottage or tenement wherein I doe now dwell.” This Thomas could not have been less than the grandson of the first-mentioned Thomas, and described himself in his will, dated November 20th, 1641, as a “pettie chapman”—a calling that is very common with Gipsies of mixed blood. The will of his son Thomas (John’s father) is dated May 28th, 1675, in which he describes himself as a “braseyer”—which is a favourite word with the Gipsies, and sounds better than tinker, and is frequently put on their tombstones. Mr. Brown says:—“From this it appears that Bunyan’s father was the first tinker in the family.” Instead of that, he should have said that it was the first one found in a will. Again he says that he has discovered from the annual returns of the parishes in Bedfordshire between 1603 and 1650, that “the families both of Bunyan’s father and of his mother, Margaret Bentley, were living there all this time as steadily as any of the other village families, and as unlike a Gipsy encampment as can well be conceived.” He found no such information in “annual parish returns,” but perhaps merely the fact of Bunyan’s father having had his legal and general residence at the cottage, while he followed his calling of tinkering all over the neighbourhood, as regulated by the chief of the tinkers or Gipsies for the district. Beyond the cottage being the residence of Thomas, we know nothing of his movements, nor of the company coming to his house; and if Mr. Brown had known anything of the subject of the Gipsies, or been willing to learn it from others, he would not have concluded that the Bunyans were not of that race, merely because they might not (as they probably did not) use a tent. It would appear that Mr. Brown has not mastered even the first principle of this subject, so as to be able to define what is meant by it being said that Bunyan was or was not of the Gipsy race.

Thomas Bonyon, in 1542, called a “labourer” in a legal document or record, and his wife a “brewer and baker,” appear to have kept a little wayside public-house, which would be frequented by the Gipsies, especially when they were “esteemed and held in great admiration.” And here it is likely that the native English Bunyans were changed into English Gipsy Bunyans by the male heir of Thomas marrying a Gipsy, whose son or grandson was Thomas, the “pettie chapman”; and whose son Thomas, the “braseyer,” was the father of John. All these would doubtless marry early, but perhaps not so early as John, who married before he was nineteen, so far as is known.

In my communication of the 6th September, I think I said enough on the question of proof as to Bunyan having been of the Gipsy race. Even with the limited knowledge about the race generally, and especially about the mixture of its blood, before I published a history of the Gipsies, Sir Walter Scott (an excellent judge), with reference to the rank of his father’s house, and not being Jews, but tinkers, said that Bunyan was “most probably a Gipsy reclaimed.” Mr. Offor, an editor of Bunyan’s works, said that “his father must have been a Gipsy.” Mr. Leland’s investigation and decision is that he “was a Gipsy,” even apparently on the sole ground of his having been a tinker. In regard to myself, Mr. Brown says that I have “really nothing to go upon but Bunyan’s own words, in which he says that his father’s house was ‘of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families of [in] the land,’ which might simply mean that his father was a poor man in a village”(!) According to Mr. Brown, Bunyan’s admission, or rather reminder, had no bearing on his nationality, while others think it conclusive, apart from his having been a tinker. But Mr. Brown did not give all of Bunyan’s language, for he left out the most important part of it, which was that of his descent, which was well known to many to have been of a low and inconsiderable generation, which had no reference to his “father being a poor man in a village.” He also omitted Bunyan’s question as to his “father’s house” being or not being Jews, using the word we in both instances; a discussion that could not have taken place between a father and a son of any of the ordinary race of Englishmen. In this way Mr. Brown gets rid of the proof that proceeded from Bunyan himself, by simply brushing it aside. When I saw him in New York, I alluded to all of Bunyan’s admissions, when he replied, “Oh, that can be easily explained.” [15a] And when I said that “one cannot say in England that Bunyan was a Gipsy, for society would not allow it,” he made no reply, so far as I noticed, but appeared to wince at the remark. I had some hesitation in giving Mr. Brown an interview, for I was satisfied that he did not wish to have the truth about Bunyan admitted; but I concluded that, having sent him some pamphlets, it would have been rude to refuse him one. [15b] It lasted only about five minutes, at the entrance of a banking-house in Broadway, and ended with some remarks about his having found the wills of the Bunyans; not one word of which was to the point in question. His only motive for an interview seemed to be to gratify his curiosity and behold the person who would dare to “cast a stigma on Bunyan’s memory.” Now he says that there is no “ferocious prejudice of caste against the name of Gipsy,” and that “none of Bunyan’s admirers would object to his being shown to be a Gipsy, if only sufficient proof were adduced”; while he has ignored everything that bears upon the subject, even what came out of Bunyan’s mouth. [16a] In place of being influenced by evidence, he put forth the fanciful idea that he could not have been a Gipsy because the name of Bunyan existed in England before the Gipsies arrived there. And now he maintains that Bunyan could not have been a Gipsy, because he owed his descent “on the native side of the house” to Thomas Bonyon, a labourer or publican or both, born about 1502, without regard to the “marriages and movements” of perhaps five or six generations till the birth of the immortal dreamer, who was baptized on the 30th November, 1628.

But for the limited space at my disposal I would put a long string of questions to Mr. Brown, and suggest a course of action for him to undo the injury he has done to Bunyan and the Gipsy race generally, particularly owing to his remarks about the illustrious pilgrim having been credited and circulated by the press in Great Britain, which complicates the question in all its bearings. [16b] We have heard much of the American John Brown in connexion with the emancipation of the Negroes in the United States, while the English John Brown seems to be doing his best, directly or indirectly, to rivet the fetters of a social despotism on a large body of his fellow-creatures in the British Islands.

I have said above that Thomas Bonyon and his wife, living in 1542, were apparently of the native English race, and made my remarks to correspond with that idea. But there was more than a possibility of them having been part of the original Gipsy stock, of mixed blood, that arrived in Great Britain before 1506, and, like their race generally, assumed the surname of a “good family in the land,” as I will illustrate at some length in my next communication, which will make its appearance in due time.