Ripper-Related Victorian Vocabulary

[Archaic]

'Skinker' and 'Bucket' vs. 'Pail'

1875: Skinker- commonly a drawer or pourer out of liquor; but here it signifies the can or jug from which the beer was poured out at table.

1877: Bucket- a pail, whether made of wood or tin. Sometimes, however, a distinction is made, a wooden vessel of this kind being called a 'bucket' and a tin one a 'pail'.


Skinker is both the person who pours the liquor (maybe at taverns?) and is also the word for the can or jug that held the liquor. In the latter sense it seems to be on a par with a "pot" used to hold beer.

I thought the differentiation between a wooden 'bucket' and tin 'pail' was interesting.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Archaic]

Gawf

Hi everyone.

Here's a slang term used by costermongers I found in a Victorian book:

Gawf - a cheap red-skinned apple, a favourite fruit with costermongers, who rub them well with a piece of cloth, and find ready purchasers.

Does anyone know if "gawf" is still used?

Hmmm... "as American as Gawf Pie". Nope, it doesn't work.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Carol]

Hi Carol,
Strictly speaking no. Even if they sold fruit and veg. They were then correctly called 'street traders' because the markets required them to have a street traders licence. But.......even in the late 1960s, when I was a (very young) PC, some wheeled stalls were brought to East Street Market in Walworth by folks who called themselves costermongers, but they still needed a licence!

Hi PC Roadnight,
Thanks for the information. I appreciate it!
Love
Carol

[PC Roadnight]

Hi everyone,
I forgot to mention my source for the above post - it is 'My East End' by Gilda O'Neill, page 61.
Better late than never!
Love
Carol

Hi Carol,
Strictly speaking no. Even if they sold fruit and veg. They were then correctly called 'street traders' because the markets required them to have a street traders licence. But.......even in the late 1960s, when I was a (very young) PC, some wheeled stalls were brought to East Street Market in Walworth by folks who called themselves costermongers, but they still needed a licence!

[Carol]

Hi everyone!

I thought you might be interested to know how the street traders in the East End came to be called 'costermongers'. This name derives from the sellers of costard apples, a variety known since the 1200's and one of the first fruits to be sold by London street traders.

When I was young in Chatham a costermonger was someone who sold items of food (fruit, fish, vegetables, etc.) from a barrow that could be moved about. Does anyone know if 'costermonger' was (or is) used for a seller with a fixed pitch in the East End?

Love
Carol

Hi everyone,
I forgot to mention my source for the above post - it is 'My East End' by Gilda O'Neill, page 61.
Better late than never!
Love
Carol

[Carol]

[QUOTE=Jane Coram;169971]Hi,

I think you're right Maurice and Stephen, as far as I know it was just a pail or jug of beer. I've never heard any other term for it. I've still got an old earthenware jug and pot with a lid in my cupboard that was my great granmas which she used to send my nan to fetch pie and mash and beer in (as well as milk).

Hi everyone!
I can't remember another term for a pail or jug of beer either. I can only remember that the little 'off-licences' attached to the pubs were always called 'The Bottle and Jug'. I can remember being sent down to our nearest 'off-licence' from time to time as an older child (at least 10 years old I would say) to get Dad a large bottle of cider that the family had with Sunday lunch. My little brother Freddy (5 years younger than myself) and I were allowed to have some as long as it was nearly drowned with water!

I'm really enjoying this thread. I'm remembering long forgotten things and it's amazing just how close my childhood seems, even though I'm soon 65 years old!

Take care,
Carol

[Stephen Thomas]

I believe Victorian ventriloquists referred to it as a 'gucket of geer'.

[Carol]

[QUOTE=ChrisGeorge;170251]

I might be wrong but I don't think that the traditional English term to refer to someone as a "proper Charlie" or a "right Charlie" has anything to do with the nickname "Charlie" to designate a night watchman. You might not have been making that connection, of course, but I thought I would just make that point.

Best regards

Chris

Hi Chris,
I was 'making that connection' actually! But yesterday evening I suddenly thought that perhaps 'a proper (or right) Charlie' more likely referred to someone being like Charlie Chaplin. Of course, this would have been 'thought up' some years after Jack the Ripper time as Chaplin was born in 1889. So just a few minutes ago I looked in to Casebook to correct myself! Thanks for your post. I never mind being 'corrected' as I always look on life as a continuous learning curve!
Love
Carol xxx

[ChrisGeorge]

[QUOTE=Carol;170232][QUOTE=Archaic;169364


CHARLEY or CHARLIE, (old). — I. A night watchman, A popular name, prior to the introduction by Sir R. Peel, in 1829, of the present police force ; since when it has fallen into desuetude.
< Note: 'Desuetude' refers to that which is lapsed or obsolete. >

Hi Archaic,

'He's a proper Charlie' was used when I was young when talking about a male of any age who was humourous or liked fooling about. I was very interested to read the above quote!

Love
Carol [/QUOTE]

I might be wrong but I don't think that the traditional English term to refer to someone as a "proper Charlie" or a "right Charlie" has anything to do with the nickname "Charlie" to designate a night watchman. You might not have been making that connection, of course, but I thought I would just make that point.

Best regards

Chris

[Carol]

[QUOTE=Archaic;169364


CHARLEY or CHARLIE, (old). — I. A night watchman, A popular name, prior to the introduction by Sir R. Peel, in 1829, of the present police force ; since when it has fallen into desuetude.
< Note: 'Desuetude' refers to that which is lapsed or obsolete. >

Hi Archaic,

'He's a proper Charlie' was used when I was young when talking about a male of any age who was humourous or liked fooling about. I was very interested to read the above quote!

Love
Carol

[Carol]

Hi everyone!

I thought you might be interested to know how the street traders in the East End came to be called 'costermongers'. This name derives from the sellers of costard apples, a variety known since the 1200's and one of the first fruits to be sold by London street traders.

When I was young in Chatham a costermonger was someone who sold items of food (fruit, fish, vegetables, etc.) from a barrow that could be moved about. Does anyone know if 'costermonger' was (or is) used for a seller with a fixed pitch in the East End?

Love
Carol

[Jane Coram]

Hi,

I think you're right Maurice and Stephen, as far as I know it was just a pail or jug of beer. I've never heard any other term for it. I've still got an old earthenware jug and pot with a lid in my cupboard that was my great granmas which she used to send my nan to fetch pie and mash and beer in (as well as milk).

I still use them, but my husband is forbidden on pain of death to touch them, because if he broke either of them his life wouldn't be living.

Hugs

Janie

xxxxx

[The Grave Maurice]

I suspect that Stephen might be right, Bunny. Every Sunday lunchtime, my grandfather was sent down Turners Road (now, mostly gone) to fetch a pail of beer for my great-grandfather from a pub called The Albion (now, completely gone). My grandfather always called it "a pail o' beer", and he was a guy who loved to use slang whenever possible. Since he always said pail (and I must have heard that story a dozen times) I'd bet that it was just called a pail.

[Stephen Thomas]

There must be a late 19th C. British slang term for a "take-away pail of beer"

I suspect that there never was one, Archaic, but who knows? There's an amusing statement by a Spitalfields policeman in the Booth survey reports where the researcher deplores the practice of children being sent to pubs to fetch beer. The policeman demurs and says that this is fine because the child takes the beer and goes but if the mothers go into the pub themselves they tend to stay there. In the meantime thanks for solving a little personal 50 year old mystery for me. In his 1939 record 'Mamie's Blues', Jelly Roll Morton describes how he learned 'the first blues I ever heard in my life' in 1905 by becoming the 'can rusher', a term I never understood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-QTtMuejAI

Best wishes as always

[YankeeSergeant]

Growler

Hi Neil. I've heard of some other micro-breweries who sell small take-out containers of beer they call "growlers". Unfortunately, they don't come in a tin buckets anymore.

There must be a late 19th C. British slang term for a "take-away pail of beer", but I'm afraid it's proving elusive.

If anybody knows the slang term, I'd greatly appreciate your posting it.

Thanks and best regards,
Archaic

It was used here in the states as well and has the same meaning although in WWII, the American navy used it as slang for the intercom what we called in my salt water days the bitch box.