link boy

plural link boys · alternative link-boy · alternative linkboy

1. historicalA boy employed to carry a torch or other light at night to help people navigate through the streets.

   By the early eighteenth century link-boys had long been part of London's criminal and sexual mythology.

   2009, Dan Cruikshank, The Secret History of Georgian London, Random House, page 94

   1 more example

   “Servants is in the arms o' Porpus, I think,” said the short chairman, warming his hands at the attendant link-boy’s torch.

   1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the chapter name)”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC

   Synonyms: linkman, torchbearer