jerry-lord

plural jerry-lords

1. UKrareslangA tavernkeeper.

   While you give 'em your brass for their brown-colour'd suds, They'll call you "free," "easy," and "funny;” […] Then, then will the " Jerry-lord" mask all His nods and his " thank ye's," and cry, " Get thee out! Begone, thou poor penniless rascal !"

   1868, Anderton, Henry, “SHUFFLE THE CARDS!”, in Life and poems of Henry Anderton, of Walton-le-Dale, page 137

   3 more examples

   More than once I have entered rooms at twelve o'clock noon, where half-a-dozen of prostitutes were drinking with as many men. Sometimes they listened with some attention to what I said; but when the “jerry lord" saw that his ‘”craft was in danger,” he began to order the "Scotch tormentor" off.

   1843, Logan, William, An exposure ... of female prostitution in London, Leeds and Rochdale and especially ... Glasgow, page 10

   Tho learned gentleman admitted that there was 'a great gulf" between the Jerry-lord and the Gin-spinner, between the Aristocracy of Alcohol and the Democracy of Drink. To sell beer alone, is low and degrading—but to sell Beer with Brandy quite respectable and elevating!

   1856, Lees, Frederic Richard, An Argument Legal and Historical for the Legislative Prohibition of the Liquor Traffic, page 48

   The subject of this sketch rented a mill, with land sufficient for the keep of his horses and a few cows. But being a boozy sort of a fellow, he hit on the grand idea of becoming a jerry lord, and put over the door for his sign, in flaming letters, " THE MILL TAVERN."

   1878, George Davies, The village tragedy; or, Echoes of the past, page 182

plural Jerry-lords

1. Alternative letter-case form of jerry-lord.