Clan Macpherson Museum Talks: Rhona Ramsay on Jamie ‘Fiddler’ Macpherson

Who was Jamie Macpherson? Very little can be said for sure about Jamie Macpherson, except that he was hanged for being a Gypsy in Banff, Scotland, on 16 November 1700. The trial of James Macpherson, James Gordon and the brothers Peter and Donald Brown, however, offers some clues as to the life lived by Macpherson. This talk will begin with an overview of the stories that are told of Jamie Macpherson’s life and of his lament that Robert Burns rewrote as McPherson’s Farewell. This will be followed with some insights offered by the trial in which he and James Gordon were convicted of being Gypsies and sentenced to hang. There will then be a short account of a recent project, which has resulted in a new piece of creative writing that tells Macpherson’s story from a new perspective. Rhona Ramsay is a PhD student at the University of Stirling, Scotland.

To see more about the Clan MacPherson Museum project that Rhona Ramsay speaks of in this talk, you can read Maggie McPhee’s piece ‘Heartbreak Through Her Eyes’ and learn more about the display at the museum.