Willam Marshall 1672 - 1792
Related to Keegan, Aleisha, and Xavier through their grandmother Lynley Foster (nee Marshall)
William was born in 1672 in Minnigaff, Wigtownshire, Galloway Scotland.
He was a gypsy descendant of Roma people, and the embodyment of an 18th century Galloway Pict when it came to fighting. The Picts were some of the fiercest and highly organized warriors of the UK in Roman times, and were never conquered by the Romans.
He was a boxer before the establishment of classic boxing rules in the mid 1700’s. It was bare knuckle boxing with little to no rules that allowed eye gouging, hair pulling, head butting, chin kicks, and wreslting. There may have been three or more bouts, with each bout being of a different sort of fighting. One bout may have been with sword and knives, another may have been with bare fists, and a third may have been with cudgels or quarterstaffs(long sticks).
Map of Galloway 1652
Wives and Children
Billy Marshall claimed to have been married 17 times and to have fathered many children (four children after his 100th birthday). He had deserted the Army several times and the navy three times. His military experience may have helped him to organize the peasants into gangs of robbers in the area of the Barullion Hills. Him and his gypsy band, called “the levellers”, would tear down dykes that the landed gentry built which would route water away from the peasant farms. His “levellers would, also, tear down the King’s fences.
Our Family Connection. Which Wife?????
Billy is said to have 17 wives and countless children, four after his 100th birthday. so what is our connection?
Well one of his wives was Flora Maxwell, reputed to be his favourite. Flora did though fall foul of Billy when she reputedly stole a cloak from a local judge. Billy banished her and her son Frances to New England American Colonies, where she died.
Frances remained in American and died in Powhatan Virginia in 1780, four years after the Revolutionary War ended. Interestingly his wife, Mary Gibson appears to have remained in Renfrewshire where her children also remained.
The Caird of Barullion
Billy always claimed to be the “King of the Gypsies”. He was ,also, referred to as the “Caird of Barullion”. Caird (a skilled gypsy) referring to ceardon (a skilled worker who practices some trade or handicraft). Barullion is the name of a range of hills in the county of Wigtonshire in the council area of Dummfries-Galloway, in southern Scotland. Another so-called title of his was “King of the Randies”. The word Randies in this context may be referring to a type of macho, virile, man that despised all rule and authority .
120 Years Old
Billy Marshall supposedly had lived 120 years in southern Scotland. He is interred at the Saint Cuthbert Churchyard in Kirkcudbright, (pronounced kirr-KOO-bree),a town in the south of Scotland in Dumfries and Galloway. The name comes from the Scottish Gaelic words “Cille Chuithbeirt” meaning “Chapel of Cuthbert”, named after the Anglo-Saxon Saint Cuthbert. The town lies south of Castle Douglas and Dalbeattie, in the part of Dumfries and Galloway known as the Stewartry, situated at the mouth of the River Dee some six miles from the sea, and was the county town of the former county of Kirkcudbrightshire.
The horns on the backside of his tombstone may represent the zodiac sign of Aries, the ram, which symbolizes leadership and strength of warrior-type energy, and may be in reference to the Tinker’s Toast: “May war never be among us”.
The crossed spoons possibly may represent a wish for his people that they may never go hungry, for the coins at his grave site may have been left there with a goodluck wish, but originally they were left there for a poor travelling gypsy to be able to buy another meal. The spoons probably represent horn spoons, which have been popular in Europe and Scandinavia as far back as medieval times, being, also popular with the Vikings. Horn spoon making has been a tradition among gypsies since the 1600’s, and possibly had been a labor of love for Billy Marshall.
The Tinkler Gypsies
An excerpt from the book The Tinkler-Gypsies by Andrew McCormack. A 600 page tome written in 1907.
Billy Marshall was held in high regard by the Galloway Tinklers of whom he was Chief, and even after the lapse of over a century since Billy’s death his name and fame are known in every home in Galloway. In the annuals of the Gypsy race Billy stands pre-eminent on account of his remarkable longevity, and if the facts of his life could be completely laid bare to the gypsiologist, that would enable many a point in dispute with regard to the Gypsy race to be settled. Billy was both a Tinkler and a Gypsy, and is supposed, besides being a renowned Gypsy Chief, to have been the last of the Pictish Kings. A study of the languages used by him and his gang should therefore prove an invaluable auxiliary, not only to the philologist in settling whether Billy really was both a Gypsy and a Pict, but also to the gypsiologist in determining the proper degree of relationship of the Scottish Tinklers and Tinkler- Gypsies to the wave of Gypsies which entered Ireland or Great Britain either towards the end of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century. The M’Culloch family, of whom there are at present several branches of landed proprietors in the Stevvaitr, seem to have taken a kindly interest in Billy, and in return he appears to have been very grateful to them; indeed to this day Billy’s descendants speak highly of the various branches of that family. For a great part of his long life he reigned with sovereign sway over a numerous and powerful gang of Gypsy Tinkers who took their range over Carrick, in Ayrshire, the Carrick mountains, and over the Stewartry and Shire of Galloway; and now and then by way of improving themselves and seeing more of the world they crossed at Donaghadee, and visited the counties of Down and Derry. “Billy Marshall’s account of himself was this: He was born in or about the year 1666, but he might have been mistaken as to the exact year of his birth. However, the fact never was doubted of his having been a private soldier in the army of King William at the battle of the Boyne. It was also well known that he was a private in some of the British regiments which served under the great Duke of Marlborough in Germany about the year 1705. But at this period Billy’s military career in the service of his country ended. About this time he went to his commanding officer, one of the M’Gufifogs of Ruscoe, a very old family in Galloway, and asked him if he had any commands for his native country. Being asked if there rt’as any opportunity, he replied yes ; he was going to Keltonhill Fair, having for some years made it a rule never to be absent. His officer, knowing his man, thought it needless to take any very strong measures to hinder him ; and Billy was at Keltonhill accordingly. ” Now Billy’s destinies placed him in a high sphere; it was about this period that, either electively or by usurpation, he was placed at the head of that mighty people in the south-west, whom he governed with equal prudence and talent for the long space of eighty or ninety years. NEW ANNUAL REGISTER, 1792, No. 34, part 2, p. 47. “Died, 28th. (Nov., 1792). At Kirkcudl)right, Scot- land, at the great age of 120, William Marshall, Tinker. This miracle of longevity retained his senses almost to the last hour of his life. He remembered distinctly to have seen King William’s Fleet, when on their way to- Ireland, riding at anchor in the Sol way Firth close by the bay of Kirkcudbright, and the transports lying in the harbour. He was present at the siege of Derry, where, having lost his uncle, who commanded a King’s frigate, he returned home, enlisted in the Dutch service, went to Holland and soon after deserted, and came back to his to native country. Naturally of a wandering and unsettled turn of mind, he could never remain long in any particular place. Hence he took up the occupation of a tinker, headed a body of lawless banditti, and frequently traversed the kingdom from one end to the other. But it is to be observed to his credit that of all the thieving wandering geniuses who, during the weakness of the established government, led forth their various gangs to plunder and to alarm the country, he was far the most honourable in his profession.”