Biddy the Chiver’s Khazi

[Gary Barnett]

“Chiver”?

This is from The Globe of 15th December, 1880:

“Mr David Bernstein, the “powerfully built” Polish Jew who stands charged by the police with stabbing a stranger in mistake for one of his acquaintances, and who asked the constable if it was the “chiveying” case he was wanted for, has made a contribution to one of the by-ways of the science of philology. In his book “In Gypsy Tents”, Mr. F. H. Groome, whose authority stands second to none in such matters, states that the total number of gypsy words which have been adopted into the slang dictionary was twenty-one, to which he doubtfully adds two more. “Chiveying”, which he does not include, must now be added to the catalogue. By the “chiveying” case, as the constable who arrested Mr. Bernstein was good enough to explain, was meant “the knifeing” case, and “chiveying” for “knifeing” is good Anglo-Romanes. Chivomengro or chinomengro is a knife, and comes from the word chiv or chin which means “cut”. From the same root comes chinro pronounced chiro, or churo or churo, which also means a knife, and gives birth to the French “argot” chourineur, a “stabber”, well-known to all those who have read “The Mysteries of Paris” by Eugene Sue. Some time ago we noticed the custom of thieves, also on police authority, of symbolising “money” by a nugget of coal and traced it to the fact that the same gypsy word stands for money and for coal. A member of the force with a fancy for philology would no doubt be able to collect from the East of London a few more curiosities of a like kind. For the origin of chiv or chin, cut, we must go straight to the Sanscrit; so that it is an eminently respectable word. Whether there be any connection of ideas between the common word “chivy” in the sense of “to drive” or “to run in a hurry”, and the phrase “to cut one’s stick”, cut being the translation of “chiv”, we scarcely venture to surmise.”

Reading this, I wonder whether it might also explain the nickname of ‘China Bob’, another of Arthur Harding’s characters. I have found evidence of someone called ‘Shiner Bob’ who I suspect may have been the original of Harding’s character. As with Biddy, his exploits are close enough to Harding’s version to suggest he was the same man, but different enough to suggest that Harding picked them up as an anecdote, possibly some time after they occurred.

[Gary Barnett]

Burial

I called St Patrick’s cemetery (Leytonstone) on the off-chance that as an RC person of limited means dying in Shoreditch Infirmary, Bridget may have been automatically buried in a public grave there. When one of my great grandfathers died in the STGITE infirmary in 1929, a notice was issued to his family to say that if they didn’t make alternative arrangements, he would be buried at St Patrick’s - they didn’t, and so he was. Somehow I couldn’t see Thomas O’Rourke arranging and paying for a private burial for Biddy.

The man at the cemetery was very helpful and confirmed that a Bridget O’Rourke, aged 56, of 3, Crooked Billet Yard (he initially read it as Gardens) had been buried in a public grave there on 20th Feb., 1934:

Grave 19
Row 44
Plot 11b

He also confirmed that my great grandfather, John Thurling (of Shovel Alley), had been buried in the same plot, albeit in a different row/public grave.

[Gary Barnett]

GRO Marriage Cert



Bridget’s address is the same as that given at the time of the attempted robbery of Peter Fagan a few months previously.

She signed her name with a cross. I’d wondered whether she had attended school in Wales, and if so, whether she would have had Welsh school friends. It would seem not.

Her father’s occupation was given as a gas stoker. At Bow, perhaps? Or Beckton?

[Gary Barnett]

Soliciting?

I’d forgotten this incident from February, 1907:



I doubt Fagan was simply a knight errant escorting Bridget home through the dangerous streets of the East End. He at least must have believed he was to receive a reward for his gallantry.

[Gary Barnett]

The reputation of Biddy the Chiver had been established by 1895, when Bridget Enright was 21. How widespread was that reputation, I wonder? Obviously it eventually filtered down to Arthur Harding, but perhaps it was more local - Hoxton/Shoreditch - in the 1890s.

[Gary Barnett]

In December, 1906, a Patrick Enright was charged at Thames Police court with failing to maintain his wife. He was reported as saying, ‘I left her thirteen or fourteen years ago. I couldn’t maintain myself. It meant murder, and I should have been hanged, and she would have been somewhere else.’

He was remanded, but I havent been able to discover the outcome of the case.

It would seem that Biddy’s family disintegrated while she was still in her teens. I think Ive found her mother in the Poplar workhouse infirmary in 1891 and her older sister, Julia, boarding in the household of a candle maker named John Ball in West Ham. I’ve had no luck (so far) with 16-year-old Biddy herself on the 1891 census.

[Gary Barnett]

The Tredegar riots are interesting in their own right. It appears they led to an exodus of Irish workers from some industrial areas of south Wales. Red Lion Square seems to have been the focal point of the disturbances in Tredegar itself. 5000 Welsh and English rioters attacked the Irish there, stoning the residents and ransacking their houses. On the Saturday alone, two houses were burned down and fifty ransacked, the furniture from them being dragged out into the square and burned.

I wonder how the Enrights (and the Kellys for that matter) weathered this outbreak of anti-Irish feeling? Was that why they moved to London?

[Gary Barnett]

Painful!

Biddy and her mates claimed the man had no wonga - they suggested he had lost it before he reached the pub. When you get past a certain age bits do start dropping off here and there (apparently).

[Sam Flynn]

On one occasion Biddy got very friendly with an old geezer in a pub and relieved him of his wonga.

Painful!

[Gary Barnett]

Prostitute?

I’ve seen no evidence of Biddy soliciting, but the kind of ‘lumbering’ of men that Harding claimed she participated in often involved luring men into dark places with promises of sex.

On one occasion Biddy got very friendly with an old geezer in a pub and relieved him of his wonga. That’s the closest to ‘lumbering’ I’ve found so far.

So, I doubt she was a prostitute and I don’t think she had anything to do with Jack the Ripper. (HR and co. please note.)

[Robert Linford]

I suppose it's a female thing. She boasts about how violent she is but won't have her sexual morals questioned.

[Gary Barnett]

Called her out of her name?

It means impugned her reputation in some way. I think it’s an Oirish expression. Perhaps Mrs Smith called Biddy a prostitute, or claimed (correctly) that she and O’Rourke were ‘living in sin’ at the time.

[Robert Linford]

Called her out of her name?

[Gary Barnett]

Biddy’s Character

Just a reminder:



Edit: IPN 30/7/1910

[Gary Barnett]

She looks quite smart.

She does. In the profile pic she looks a bit like my old mum. Perhaps that’s why I’ve got such a soft spot for her.

I should add that my mum’s character was the polar opposite of the Chiver’s.