An expression known to all meaning ‘nothing’ – and often said to be ‘Sweet Fanny Adams’. Yet it is also a term having a most interesting etymology, albeit a sad and macabre one.
In 1867 three girls from Alton in Hampshire took a walk. Fanny Adams, aged 8, her 7-year-old sister Lizzie, and their 8-year-old friend Minnie Warner were given permission to head towards Flood Meadow by Harriet Adams, mother of the sisters. Around two in the afternoon on Tanhouse Lane they met Frederick Baker, a 29-year-old solicitor’s clerk. The man offered four halfpennies to the girls, one for each and an extra one for Fanny to accompany him to Shalden some two miles away. They all took the coins but Fanny refused to go with him. It made no difference. Baker carried Fanny Adams into a field of hops. She was never seen alive again.
It was three hours before the other girls returned home. In their naivety they saw no reason to raise an alarm and it was only when a neighbour, a Mrs Gardiner, asked about Fanny that their story came out and Mrs Adams was informed. Both women retraced the girls’ steps and soon met Baker. They spoke to him and while he admitted he had given them money he denied anything else had happened. In Victorian Britain a man in his position was considered completely trustworthy and his version was accepted.
Another two hours and still no sign of Fanny and every available hand went searching. They soon found what they were looking for in the hop field. What they found was horrific for the body had been horribly mutilated. Arms and legs were severed, the eye sockets were empty, and the torso was empty. Her eyes later found in the river, with the internal organs strewn across the countryside. Over a matter of days the remains were recovered and taken to the local doctor’s surgery where they were reunited.
Later that evening Baker was arrested at the office of his employer, William Clement. Police had to protect him from the mob who, on seeing the blood on his clothes, were increasingly aggressive. There was so much evidence against him – two blood-stained knives on his person, a witness to Baker leaving Alton and a new career “as a butcher”, the statements of the Lizzie and Minnie, and a diary entry in Baker’s own hand “24th August, Saturday – killed a young girl. It was fine and hot.”
Sent for trial at Winchester it was revealed Baker had murdered her by a blow to the head with a sizable stone. His counsel tried to show he was insane, there being several cases of such in the family, they also tried to show diminished responsibility with medical evidence of epilepsy. There was no question as to his eventual guilt, the only question whether the police could protect him long enough for him to die at the hands of the executioner. On Christmas Eve 1867 Baker was hanged outside Winchester Gaol, the last person executed in the city.
Today we see the origin of the phrase as insensitive, to say the least. However it took just two years for this notorious case to enter the language, for it was then the Royal Navy introduced tinned mutton to their rations. Sailors did not care for the new protein source and suggested it must be produced from the remains of the murder victim. It has been speculated the two stories were linked by the local of the Royal Navy yard at Deptford, where there was an abattoir and a bakery and within touching distance of Alton. In reality the two were several miles apart and this explanation was almost certainly created several years afterwards. The same is also true of the abbreviation “Sweet FA” used for “sweet f**k all” when certainly from much later. The tin containing the meat was later reused as a mess tin. Recycling nineteenth century style led to the mess tin being known as a Fanny as it still is today
Shortly after the use of Fanny Adams to refer to something as ‘worthless’ or ‘nothing at all’ the Australians began referring to canned chopped meat as Harriet Lane. Despite this also being the name of Fanny’s mother, the two are unrelated except by the circumstances of their respective murders. As with Fanny, Harriet Lane (for that was her name) was murdered and butchered, the latter by a man named Henry Wainwright. However this was not in Australia, as we would presume, but in London.
As usual I would welcome any suggestions for themes or subjects, or even specific words to examine the origins, meanings and etymologies. I’d be delighted to hear from you.
Showing posts with label Hampshire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hampshire. Show all posts
Sunday, 14 July 2013
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Hampshire Place Names
An excerpt from the book which came out in 2010 and a look at the entry for Brockenhurst which includes one of the most informative pub names I have ever found.
With just two records of note, as Broceste in 1086 and Brocheherst in 1158, the first element here is uncertain and there are two possible meanings. The more likely is a personal name followed by hyrst and thus ‘Broca’s wooded hill’. However the first element may be brocen which can still be seen as ‘broken’ and understood to be ‘undulating wooded hill’.
Locally we find Connigers Copse, a name which speaks of the time at the end of the twelfth century when rabbits were introduced to this country by the Normans. This reference to ‘the rabbit warren coppice’ reminds us that the animals which many see as pests were introduced for food and, within a few short years, they had escaped into the wild and had quite literally bred like rabbits resulting in the population we see today. Rhinefield is a regional name which began life as a field name, for the early forms from the fourteenth century of Ryefeld and Riefelde point to ‘the rye open land’.
Seen as Reidon in 1284, Reydone in 1333, and Roydon in 1573, the name of Roydon is derived from raege-dun or ‘the hill of the female roe deer’. Setley is first seen as Setle in 1331 and, although enclosing any plantation against wild animals was considered illegal until the law was changed in 1483, this can only refer to ‘the set out or planted woodland’. The name of Hincheslea tells us it was where ‘hind calves frequented a woodland clearing’ and possibly shows these immature females were being kept for meat and their hides.
Brockenhurst has some of the most informative pub names in the county, perhaps even the country. While the Filly is clearly a reference to the female New Forest ponies under the age of four, it is a very unusual name. The Morant Arms remembers Edward Morant who, in 1770, came to Brockenhurst House which he purchased for over six thousand pounds. However this was not the end of his spending for he completely rebuilt the home, a resplendent Georgian mansion with beautifully laid-out grounds and over 3,000 acres of land in total. His fortune came from the family estates in Jamaica. He is also remembered as being an amateur cricketer of considerable ability who organised many matches here at the end of the eighteenth century. The Turfcutters Arms is not what it may seem, for the ‘turf’ is a reference to a slab of peat which was dug hereabouts as a fuel.
However there can be none more unique a pub name than the Snakecatcher. Brusher Mills was born Henry (known as Harry) Mills in March 1840, one of eight children. He lived in the hut of a former charcoal burner, a simple affair with a bed of dry bracken, a chair, firewood kept in an old biscuit tin, a single spoon he had fashioned himself, and his tin of tobacco. He was not ashamed of his simple home, would often invite visitors inside for a cup of tea (plenty of sugar but no milk). A cleft palate made his speech difficult to comprehend, although tradtion has it that this was the result of a gypsy curse.
Harry ‘Brusher’ Mills was the snakecatcher, he caught adders to earn a living. Leaving his home in the early morning he would walk miles around the New Forest every day, a tin with holes in one hand, a sack over his shoulder, and a second sack carrying the tools of his trade - scissors, knives, tweezers and a forked stick. The adders would be caught, killed and stripped of the fat which would be melted down to produce an embrocation used for a multitude of ailments and troubles, including sprains, bruises, rheumatism, and, of course, adder bites. Such cures were trusted, which was not surprising, as other commonly held beliefs were that touching the body of a hanged man was the only way to rid a person of St Vitus Dance, while fits would be banished by eating the livers of no less than forty green frogs.
The majority of his catches were grass snakes, which he could sell the skins of as souvenirs. During his lifetime it is estimated Brusher, a name thought to be derived from the way he brushed the bracken aside to find his quarry, caught almost 30,000 snakes of which only one in every eight was an adder.
Harry died at the age of 65, the result of heart condition. His last meal of meat, bread and pickles was unfinished, the drink still alongside on the table, and he was found in an outhouse of his favourite pub, then called the Railway Tavern but today renamed the Snakecatcher in his honour.
I would welcome any suggestions for themes or subjects, or even specific words to examine the origins, meanings and etymologies. I’d be delighted to hear from you.
With just two records of note, as Broceste in 1086 and Brocheherst in 1158, the first element here is uncertain and there are two possible meanings. The more likely is a personal name followed by hyrst and thus ‘Broca’s wooded hill’. However the first element may be brocen which can still be seen as ‘broken’ and understood to be ‘undulating wooded hill’.
Locally we find Connigers Copse, a name which speaks of the time at the end of the twelfth century when rabbits were introduced to this country by the Normans. This reference to ‘the rabbit warren coppice’ reminds us that the animals which many see as pests were introduced for food and, within a few short years, they had escaped into the wild and had quite literally bred like rabbits resulting in the population we see today. Rhinefield is a regional name which began life as a field name, for the early forms from the fourteenth century of Ryefeld and Riefelde point to ‘the rye open land’.
Seen as Reidon in 1284, Reydone in 1333, and Roydon in 1573, the name of Roydon is derived from raege-dun or ‘the hill of the female roe deer’. Setley is first seen as Setle in 1331 and, although enclosing any plantation against wild animals was considered illegal until the law was changed in 1483, this can only refer to ‘the set out or planted woodland’. The name of Hincheslea tells us it was where ‘hind calves frequented a woodland clearing’ and possibly shows these immature females were being kept for meat and their hides.
Brockenhurst has some of the most informative pub names in the county, perhaps even the country. While the Filly is clearly a reference to the female New Forest ponies under the age of four, it is a very unusual name. The Morant Arms remembers Edward Morant who, in 1770, came to Brockenhurst House which he purchased for over six thousand pounds. However this was not the end of his spending for he completely rebuilt the home, a resplendent Georgian mansion with beautifully laid-out grounds and over 3,000 acres of land in total. His fortune came from the family estates in Jamaica. He is also remembered as being an amateur cricketer of considerable ability who organised many matches here at the end of the eighteenth century. The Turfcutters Arms is not what it may seem, for the ‘turf’ is a reference to a slab of peat which was dug hereabouts as a fuel.
However there can be none more unique a pub name than the Snakecatcher. Brusher Mills was born Henry (known as Harry) Mills in March 1840, one of eight children. He lived in the hut of a former charcoal burner, a simple affair with a bed of dry bracken, a chair, firewood kept in an old biscuit tin, a single spoon he had fashioned himself, and his tin of tobacco. He was not ashamed of his simple home, would often invite visitors inside for a cup of tea (plenty of sugar but no milk). A cleft palate made his speech difficult to comprehend, although tradtion has it that this was the result of a gypsy curse.
Harry ‘Brusher’ Mills was the snakecatcher, he caught adders to earn a living. Leaving his home in the early morning he would walk miles around the New Forest every day, a tin with holes in one hand, a sack over his shoulder, and a second sack carrying the tools of his trade - scissors, knives, tweezers and a forked stick. The adders would be caught, killed and stripped of the fat which would be melted down to produce an embrocation used for a multitude of ailments and troubles, including sprains, bruises, rheumatism, and, of course, adder bites. Such cures were trusted, which was not surprising, as other commonly held beliefs were that touching the body of a hanged man was the only way to rid a person of St Vitus Dance, while fits would be banished by eating the livers of no less than forty green frogs.
The majority of his catches were grass snakes, which he could sell the skins of as souvenirs. During his lifetime it is estimated Brusher, a name thought to be derived from the way he brushed the bracken aside to find his quarry, caught almost 30,000 snakes of which only one in every eight was an adder.
Harry died at the age of 65, the result of heart condition. His last meal of meat, bread and pickles was unfinished, the drink still alongside on the table, and he was found in an outhouse of his favourite pub, then called the Railway Tavern but today renamed the Snakecatcher in his honour.
I would welcome any suggestions for themes or subjects, or even specific words to examine the origins, meanings and etymologies. I’d be delighted to hear from you.
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