Regency Pastimes: Boxing the Watch

By | |

Evitata rotis 1 29 boxing the watch upsetting a watchman's sentry box with the watchman inside was a favourite amusement of the gilded youth of the time

This footnote appears in reference to this lecture:

LECTURE THE SECOND CONGREVE AND ADDISON A GREAT number of years ago before the passing of the Reform Bill there existed at Cambridge a certain 5 debating club called the Union and I remember that there was a tradition amongst the undergraduates who frequented that renowned school of oratory that the great leaders of the Opposition and Government had their eyes upon the University Debating Club and that 10 if a man distinguished himself there he ran some chance of being returned to Parliament as a great nobleman's nominee So Jones of John's or Thomson of Trinity would rise in their might and draping themselves in their gowns rally round the monarchy or hurl defiance 15 at priests and kings with the majesty of Pitt or the fire of Mirabeau fancying all the while that the great noble man's emissary was listening to the debate from the back benches where he was sitting with the family seat in his pocket Indeed the legend said that one or 20 two young Cambridge men orators of the Union were actually caught up thence and carried down to Cornwall or old Sarum and so into Parliament And many a young fellow deserted the jogtrot University curriculum to hang on in the dust behind the fervid wheels of the 25 Parliamentary chariot Where I have often wondered were the sons of peers and Members of Parliament in Anne's and George's time Were they all in the army or hunting in the country or boxing the watch How was it that the 30 young gentlemen from the University got such a prodigi ous number of places A lad composed a neat copy of verses at Christchurch or Trinity in which the death of a great personage was bemoaned the French king

Which appears in: Thackeray, W. M. (1913). The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century: A Series of Lectures. United Kingdom: Clarendon Press.

In an early edition, the footnote read:
235 5 boxing the watch St Giles's a favorite amusement of roysterers like the Mohawks was to overturn the sentry boxes leaving the watchmen standing on their heads inside St Giles in the fields in what was then the western part of the city was a notorious center of law lessness Thackeray, W. M. (1905). The history of Henry Esmond, esq., ed. by H.B. Moore. United States: Caxton Publishing Company.

Which placed this activity solely in the area of St Giles. I believe the use of Mohawk is a simile, as indicated by the word roysterer. More context is provided in this Regency contemporary essay:

TRAVELLING ODDITIES NO II THE enterprising traveller is one who much resembles what we have read of the bloods and Mohawks of earlier times but who with the pious fear of Sir Richard Birnie and Mr Halls before his eyes pants to quit his native soil for the express purpose of astonishing the natives elsewhere They are the roysterers as Shallow has it of the earth At Eton in their own elegant phraseology they have not feared to come to the scratch with the Windsor bargemen have led gown against town at Oxford have long as gloriously figured in the lobbies of the theatre in the vindication of the fair fame of certain calumniated female visitors of those receptacles of peculiar virtue and chastity as to the annoyance of all who boast not the honour of such an association they receive a familiar wink from the exhibitors of the prize ring ere they set to speak indulgently of Thurtell's crimes own Pierce Egan as their magnus Apollo and with sundry potent and nervous oaths express their scorn and detestation of any thing French or foreign At a table d hôte they are easily recognized by their elbows being planted firmly on the board grasping a knife in one hand and a fork in the other with the most delicate dish at table secured by the coudées franches with which it is flanked and swearing at the waiter a sort of grace before they exclusively apportion for their own gratifica tion the plate they have monopolized Yet of all travellers these are the easiest discomfited where they do not encounter the too mild or meek the too gentle and well bred to the unprotected female or the infirm man they are the most obnoxious and tyrannical of associates but when they meet with such as are ill disposed to own their influence who firmly and decidedly resist their rudeness or reprove their bru tality who aware of the ample means existing amongst Continental nations for the instant as effectual repression of insult threaten to recur to it it is well to observe the alacrity of sinking which the would be heroes possess their blustering is changed to sulkiness their bru tality to fear and with nothing to redeem their native vulgarity and awkwardness they attract the contempt if they cannot the pity of those who but lately trembled before them I remember travelling with two The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal. (1828). United Kingdom: Henry Colburn and Company.

My eyes landed on “boxing the watch” on a recent re-read of The Corinthian and I wanted to fact check to see if it was a Heyerism.

I found no use of the term in the newspapers, and the only Regency contemporary use in the Congreve essay in the Thackeray collection.

I did find some scant references, mostly from riots, throughout the late Regency early Victorian era of overturning sentry boxes as part of the general vandalism that occurred. There are also some modern historical non-fiction pieces that point to specific roysteres, like Lord Camelford, who was fond of “boxing the watch”, although its described as beating up patrolmen rather than tipping over the sentry box (Shaw, K. (2017). Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know: The Extraordinary Exploits of the British and European Aristocracy. Robinson.).

There is, in the late Georgian/early Regency cant dictionary Blackguardiana a definition that describes assaulting the watch as a favored activity of one type of chap:

SCOWER to scower or score off to run away perhaps from score i e full speed or as fast as legs would carry one to scower the cramp ring to wear bolts or fetters from which as well as from coffin hinges rings supposed to prevent the cramp are made Scowerers riotous bucks who amuse themselves with breaking windows beating the watch and assaulting every person they meet called scowering the streets Caulfield, J. (1793). Blackguardiana: Or, A Dictionary of Rogues …. United Kingdom: J. Shepherd.

Watch boxes were largely developed in the 1640s to help shelter the watchmen during inclement weather, so they would have been tempting to tip (like a porto-john) when on a bender tear. I also have found an image  from 1825 of two gentlemen carrying off a sleeping watchman in his sentry box as if in a sedan chair. Also appearing in Pierce Egan‘s Tom & Jerry, is this Cruikshank image entitled Tom Getting the Best of a Charley:

The text describes Tom finding the nightwatchman asleep in his box, and showing off to his cousin the pastime of tipping a dozing watchman. The text notes that in this occasion, it was impossible for the watchman to get themselves out and so would need assistance, making it easy to make a clean getaway.

I have talked about Charley’s shelters before (Regency Reader Questions: Carlton House to a Charley’s Shelter), and they were an occasional reference in humorous songs of the era, including in this refrain: “Helter-skelter, Charley’s shelter, Spring the rattle-give ’em battle” (The Universal Songster: Or, Museum of Mirth: Forming the Most Complete, Extensive, and Valuable Collection of Ancient and Modern Songs in the English Language … Embellished with … Twenty-nine Wood-cuts, Designed. (1825). United Kingdom: J. Fairburn.).

Watchmen were replaced by the metro police beginning in 1829. Although this did not eliminate the violence against policemen, as newspapers clearly indicate, it did end the watch.

So while I have no doubt people assaulted watchmen and tipped over sentry boxes, and a selection of people called it “boxing the watch” I do not think it was a ubiquitous term or activity in the Regency, or in earlier eras.

Discover more from Regency Reader

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.