Tag: accents

‘Weel, your honour, I was three sheets to the wind, and that’s all about it’: A Tyneside collier in the Thames Police court

Unloading coal at the London docks 1871

The London press delighted in occasionally giving their readership a flavor of the drama that unfolded in the metropolitan police courts. There was plenty of pathos but also humour for balance, and if a reporter could poke fun at a regional or foreign accent, so much the better.

John Leslie was a seaman. He was master of the Sarah, a collier that brought coal down from the north east of England to unload at the London docks. It was a tough life but he was his own man and earned a decent wage for the fuel he delivered to the capital.

In early November 1863 he had unloaded his cargo and so he headed for pubs and lodging houses close by the docks, in Ratcliffe and Wapping. At some point, and it is not clear why, Leslie, much the worse for drink, went in search of his mother.

He turned up at the home of Mrs Elizabeth Farrier at 131 Wapping High Street, Banging on the door he demanded to be let in shouting ‘I want my mother!’ Mrs Farrier said that no one answering to his mother’s name lived there, he was mistaken and should go away. But John was determined and in his drunken rage he pushed past her into the house. As she tried to stop him he punched her in the face and swore at her.

The tumult alerted the house and Mrs Farrier’s neighbours and a policeman was summoned. PC Palmer managed to arrest Leslie and dragged him off to the station. The next morning he was stood in the dock at Thames Police court charged with violent assault.

In his defense a chastened Leslie said he was merely looking for his mother.

‘You should prosecute the search for your mother at reasonable hours, and when you are sober’,

the magistrate (Mr Partridge) admonished him.

‘Weel, your honour, I was three sheets to the wind, and that’s all about it’,

the man replied in a strong north eastern accent.

When asked if he had been ‘paid off’ Leslie countered that he was not a mere sailor but his own boss:

‘Eh mon! I am not paid off at all. I am master of my own ship’.

That didn’t do him any favours with the justice who, determining that he was a man of means (despite his rough appearance) fined 40s for the assault, a considerable sum by the standards of assault prosecutions in the 1860s. However, Leslie was a ‘man of means’ and he paid the money immediately and went on his way leaving the mystery of his mother’s location unsolved.

[from The Globe, 13 November 1863]

‘The people in this part of the world are not acquainted with the Manchester language’: a stowaway at the Royal Arsenal.

Royal_Arsenal_Map,_1877

PC Monaghan was on patrol at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich in the early hours of the morning on Tuesday 21 April 1880. As the constable entered the canon cartridge factory site he thought he heard something and went to investigate. The area was restricted since, being ‘devoted to the manufacture and storage of explosives’ it was one ‘of the most dangerous areas of the Arsenal’. Even the workforce at the Arsenal was not permitted inside without a special order but somehow someone had got in.

The arsenal’s store was about two miles from any inhabited buildings but it was accessible from the river, and this is how a man had gained entry and was now hiding inside. PC Monaghan secured him and asked him his business there. The man told him his name was William Smith and that lived at an address in Kennington and was a blacksmith by trade. He ‘was quite sober’ but could not give a satisfactory explanation for being there.

The policeman took his prisoner back to the station where he was formally charged with ‘being in the Royal Arsenal for a felonious purpose’. The police took the details he’d given them and visited an address at Park Street, off the Kennington Road. The address appeared to be a false one however, as no one knew of him there. Later that day William Smith (if that was indeed his name) was presented at Woolwich Police Court before the sitting magistrate, Mr. Balguy.

Smith explained, ‘in a provincial accent’ that he had come down from Manchester looking for work at the arsenal, but he’d got lost. Why had he given a false address to the inspector at the station house then? Smith insisted he hadn’t but the inspector testified that the address he’d heard was ‘on Kennington Lane’. Perhaps it was the prisoner’s accent that was causing the problem Mr. Balguy suggested:

‘Perhaps you did not understand him? The people in this part of the world are not acquainted with the Manchester language’, adding that he would remand him overnight so more enquiries could be made.

Smith doesn’t reappear in the newspaper gleanings over the next few days so perhaps he was able to verify his address or was simply sent to prison as a vagrant, perhaps even despatched back to the North West. The Royal Arsenal employed workers from all over Britain and when these men weren’t building the armaments to defend the Empire they enjoyed a relaxed a game of football from time to time. In September 1886 they played ‘one or two games’ as Dial Square Cricket Club. In January 1887 they played their first game (against Erith) as the Royal Arsenal and the rest, as they say, is history.

[from The Standard (London, England), Wednesday, April 21, 1880]

If you want to know more about Arsenal’s history there is no better place to go than the AISA Arsenal History Society’s website, run by Tony Attwood. As I write this the news has emerged that the modern Arsenal Football Club, now based in North London since it moved there in 1913 (but still called ‘Woolwich’ Arsenal) have decided that this season will be the last under Arsene Wenger’s management. I am a season ticket holder at Arsenal and this is a sad day but also an exciting one. I’m sure he reads this blog so I’d like to say thank you and all the very best for whatever you do next Arsene, you will be a very hard act to follow.