New historic details revealed on the lives of Caithness cave dwellers
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An academic study of the historic cave dwellers of Caithness reveals little-known details of the people who called these inhospitable places home.
In a postgraduate diploma in Genealogical, Palaeographic and Heraldic Studies from the University of Strathclyde, Stephanie Waterston reveals the names of the original (progenitor) ancestor couple who took up residence in caves as William MacFee and Margaret Campbell.
The period of the study dates from 1820 until 1917 when living in caves became too harsh due to government legislation enacted during the First World War.
In her paper, Stephanie writes: “From the outset of the study, a more transient mix of families was anticipated to be found occupying the caves.
“However, an unexpected and remarkable result occurred during the family tree construction for the cave dwellers.
“It became clear that William MacFee and Margaret Campbell, were the progenitor ancestor couple of the group of Travellers who were occupying the caves during the time period covered in this study with ancillary lines of Newlands’, Williamsons and Stewarts intermarrying with the descendants of this progenitor couple.”
The findings of Stephanie’s dissertation have not been published in the media despite it dating back to 2018 and she thinks that part of the reason is that it is still a very “charged topic” in Caithness and bitter memories persist.
She also found that there was little serious study of the cave-dwelling phenomenon and the same few accounts frequently appear from the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson and Dr Arthur Mitchell who wrote reports after visiting caves around Wick.
Stephanie writes: “Whilst the travelling community in Scotland have a long history of temporarily sheltering in caves and rock shelters around countryside and coast, the cave dwellers of Caithness stand out in this history for the population and persistence of their inhabitation of the caves in the county.
“Despite this, the literature is lacking of any in-depth research into the people of this group and their circumstances.”
She talks about the harsh lifestyle of the Travelling folk who became known as ‘tinkers’ or ‘tinklers’ due to their skills working with tin but these terms were often used in a derogatory manner.
Much of her research came from the John O’Groat Journal and its reports from the 19th and early 20th centuries. The earliest Groat article mentioning the occupation of a cave in Caithness is in 1845 where a “band of tinkers are presently located in the grotto at Dunbeath”.
Stephanie’s studies took her on a journey, not only through newspaper and academic material but also in the form of field trips around the Caithness coast where she visited caves at Wick, Brough, Latheronwheel, Dunbeath, Forse and several others.
She noted how historic photographs of cave dwellers were often wrongly attributed to certain locations. An image of people at a cave called Kunk’s Hole at Brough is often misnamed as a cave on the south side of Wick Bay for which there are no known photographs.
She said that one of the biggest gems she found regarding the struggle of the Caithness Travellers, especially after the Vagrancy Act of 1824, was a quote from the John O’Groat Journal article/letter called ‘Our Nomadic Population’.
It states: "They have fought out a long battle with society and they have retired from point to point till now they live between rock and ocean as a solemn protest against all who fight with them."
The Vagrancy Act and other increasingly restrictive legislation, such as the demand for children to attend school, were detrimental to the nomadic lifestyle and during WWI the lighting of fires around the coast was prohibited, making cave life without warmth and the ability to cook food too inhospitable.
“By this point, several families had taken up some rather poor housing offered to them in Thurso and Wick,” writes Stephanie.
“Soon after, with many men leaving their families behind to join the service and a more complex patchwork of legislation being enacted, detrimental to their lifestyle and travelling tradition, many of the Caithness Travellers had begun being settled into houses.”
Speaking to the Groat, Stephanie talked about the increasingly restrictive laws of the 19th century which affected the Traveller lifestyle and classed many as vagrants.
“Talk about a hardy and determined people that were so insistent they would not be driven out of this county. What a struggle and they were very canny too,” she said.
“You can see from the records they knew full well they couldn't be classed as ‘vagrants’ anymore once a second generation was born here – so trying to drive them off via the Vagrancy Act was out the window for the authorities. Then they figured out that clever loophole in the Trespass Act about it not applying to ‘unenclosed places’ so the caves were fair game.”
Stephanie admits to being shocked by many of the revelations brought up through her intense research of the subject. Written records that do exist are often from recorded births, deaths and marriages along with any court appearances and Poor Relief applications in which people record their abode as one of the Caithness caves.
After a birth was noted at South Cove in Wick Bay in 1864 a flurry of letters was sent to the Groat. One from ‘Observer’, dated August 1866, states: “We bring sailors here in our hundreds, but not one of our clergy has ever thought of paying any of them a visit, and now one or two emissaries of Rome are showing themselves more mindful of their duty.
“We traffic with and foster the savages who now inhabit the caves, or such like dismal dens in the rock, in our immediate neighbourhood, and yet we are making no effort to civilise them.”
There is a hard copy of the dissertation lodged with Wick Heritage Museum and the Caithness archives at Nucleus. The paper is also available as a PDF download at ResearchGate under the title “Who were the cave dwellers of Caithness?” with password ‘tinsmiths’.
Stephanie says if she ever revisited the subject she would like to do it in conjunction with people from the local Travelling community.
