Biddy the Chiver’s Khazi

[Anna Morris]

Thats how Ive always said it, but people often say shiv. My grandkids tell me Ive got it wrong, but their pronunciations are horribly American. They even say Zee instead of Zed!

Does it have the same origin as chivvy - to hurry someone along?

Wikipedia actually has a short page on "Shiv" and a longer page on Wiktionary. That is how it is pronounced in American gangster films.

The word may come from a Romani word for knife, chivvomengro which supplies various verbs. It can also mean the woody remains from processing flax or hemp, or to stab someone with something that is not necessarily a knife.

We learn Z = zee in grade school and to be clear, Z as in zebra. Internationally zed is correct. Zee like zebra leads to corrections and ridicule.

[Gary Barnett]

https://outsidethezonegallery.com/pages/crooked-billet-project-space

[Gary Barnett]

The entrance to Crooked Billet Yard in 2020.

[Gary Barnett]

Pronounced as spelt.
A chiv = knife

That’s how I’ve always said it, but people often say ‘shiv’. My grandkids tell me I’ve got it wrong, but their pronunciations are horribly American. They even say Zee instead of Zed!

Does it have the same origin as ‘chivvy’ - to hurry someone along?

[Edward Stow]

Pronounced as spelt.
A chiv = knife

[Gary Barnett]

I would like to canvass opinions on the pronounciation of ‘Chiver’.

‘Shiver’ would be in line with the modern slang usage, but would that have been picked up in the press as ‘Chiver’?

Perhaps it would, the Romany origins of the word may have been commonly known at the time.

Any thoughts?

[Gary Barnett]

I was looking at 1891 - you had Abraham, born Lancs, and there were also references to Lincolnshire, Cheshire and Essex.

Ah, yes. They seem to have moved about a bit. In 1881 they were living in Gravesend. The Essex connection was to Grays, I see.

George Evans makes some sense geographically, but prior to her 1901 incarceration at Stone, there’s no evidence that I’ve seen of Biddy being in Kent. Which was why I latched onto Louisa’s east end origins.

[Robert Linford]

I was looking at 1891 - you had Abraham, born Lancs, and there were also references to Lincolnshire, Cheshire and Essex.

[Gary Barnett]

Ah, so she wasn’t alive when Biddy was at Stone.

The other Bradley family in Invicta Road - James, Alice and kids - seem Kent through and through. How would Biddy have got to know them?

Biddy’s recorded friends are something of a mystery.

[Gary Barnett]

An Ancestry tree has her as Baltzer, and says she died in 1902 in Barming Heath Asylum.

Ah, so she wasn’t alive when Biddy was at Stone.

[Robert Linford]

An Ancestry tree has her as Baltzer, and says she died in 1902 in Barming Heath Asylum.

[Gary Barnett]

Parents, Heinrich, a German sugar baker, and Catharina Petri. Resident in Grove Street, STGITE in 1871. That sounds more like it.

So, did Louisa go off the rails a bit and chum up with the Chiver?

I can’t recall if I’ve posted the 1898 report of Biddy stealing a watch from her landlady, Mrs Jacobs of Lucas Street. That’s just to the east of Grove street.

[Gary Barnett]

Baltzar possibly? Born in Mile End in 1864, MMN Patar. Very exotic.

Parents, Heinrich, a German sugar baker, and Catharina Petri. Resident in Grove Street, STGITE in 1871. That sounds more like it.

So, did Louisa go off the rails a bit and chum up with the Chiver?

[Gary Barnett]

It’s possible, but there’s no concrete evidence.

I notice that George’s wife Louisa (née Baltzer?) was born in Stepney. Not sure that’s the right spelling of her maiden name.

Baltzar possibly? Born in Mile End in 1864, MMN Patar. Very exotic.

[Gary Barnett]

Fitter at cement works
Cement labourer


I don't know if this made them hardened criminals.

It’s possible, but there’s no concrete evidence.

I notice that George’s wife Louisa (née Baltzer?) was born in Stepney. Not sure that’s the right spelling of her maiden name.