Biddy the Chiver’s Khazi

[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.

[Robert Linford]

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

[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.

[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.

[Robert Linford]

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

[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.

[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?

[Edward Stow]

Pronounced as spelt.
A chiv = knife

[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?

[Gary Barnett]

The entrance to Crooked Billet Yard in 2020.

[Gary Barnett]

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

[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]

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.

Thanks, Anna. Of course I wasn’t denigrating US pronunciations, just the fact that they are adopted by my grandkids.

It’s odd that Biddy arrives on the scene with her nickname already established and we can’t find any previous incidents to justify it. Perhaps she earned it without falling foul of the authorities.

[Gary Barnett]

It seems that Biddy’s story has attracted the attention of academia.

The more the merrier!

[Gary Barnett]

This incident, as reported in the Evening Standard of 9th June, 1892, may be the origin of the ‘Chiver’ moniker. Aged 18, Bridget Enright slashed the face of a woman named Bridget Pigott whom she claimed had ‘accused me for nothing’. She received one month’s hard at the Thames police court.