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Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2010 7:01 pm

I've always wondered about the origins of this phrase, and whether it applied to just the 'English' or to the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish as well. And if 'Tommy Atkins' was the stereotypical 'English soldier', what were the values/attributes attached to the stereotypical 'Irish' soldier in particular during the period? I would be interested to hear your opinions Very Happy

Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2010 8:30 pm

Through no fault of his own or at least through few faults of his own: impoverished, uneducated, cold, hungry and possibly homeless thanks to the "crowbar men" enforcing eviction. He probably had a large family to feed (the average rural Irish family had seven children or least that's what I've read) and no other possibility of employment except taking the Queen's shilling (enlisting). There were more Irish born defenders as Rorke's Drift then there were from Wales! If they were lucky and had some money, they could risk "the coffin ships" which had a death rate of some 20% during the voyage (and many authorities have compared to the Atlantic Passage of the slavers) and sail to America or Canada. There's an Irish flag hung in the Alamo museum to memorialize the four (and probably more) native Irish who died in its defense. Some of them surely came a long way!

Of the books I've read, the most emotive description of the Victorian "Irish experience" is a chapter in Cecil Woodham-Smith's "The Reason Why". It's a book about the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, of course, but includes this chapter because Lord Lucan was a prominent and influential English landlord in Ireland during the Famine. Pretty intense stuff!

Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2010 10:05 pm

Peter

The origins of the expression are lost, although one or two theories have always circulated. One of these supposes that the name was printed at the top of one of the army forms (the attestation perhaps?) and the suggestion for this has been ascribed to the Duke of Wellington. Many attestations from the 18th and early 19th centuries survive, so I think one would have been found by now if that had been the origin. Kipling, of course, gave it some rapid impetus in the 1890s, just in time for the big show in S Africa from 1899, when it really caught on. It apparently never really clicked with Tommy himself, although "Jerry" used the epithet regularly between 1914 & 1918!

Yes, any private soldier in the British Army. Kipling seems usually to have ascribed (roughly) a cockney accent to his own Tommies, but I can't think that Scots, Welsh or Irish were in any way excluded from the term, especially if in an English infantry regiment. Tommy's attributes are well known - stolid, grumpy, complaining and often worse for drink, but steady, stubborn, reliable and defiant when required to be so in action, provided he was well led. Initiative he didn't do (nor was expected to) and certainly not elan! But he could attack with considerable dash on occasions. Would follow a good officer to the ends of the earth.

Irish? The same, only more belligerent, more inclined to irascibility - and more inclined to love a good fight when in drink! (The stereotypes are coming out now!) I'd imagine he'd be a good bloke to have on your side in any scrap!

As Saw says, the Irish soldier was likely to have come from even harsher conditions than his English counterpart, if that's possible, considering Victorian conditions at times in city, town and country. But it certainly was possible, because of the grinding poverty of Ireland and, during and after the Famine, it was his only ticket to survival, other than emigration to America or elsewhere. Thousands poured into England (Liverpool, London) but many of these ended up in the army too. The presence of British army barracks all over Ireland meant recruitment was easy.

Saw - did you know she later wrote a book called The Great Hunger? If you appreciated that chapter in The Reason Why, you'll enjoy (if that's the right word) this work.

Peter

Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 12:41 am

Thank you for that, Peter. I just returned from ordering it on Amazon.

Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 6:21 am

There is one version - the story goes that when a new Army Pay Book was introduced - a forerunner of the AB64 - a specimen was submitted to the Duke of Wellington for his approval - the name of old veteran of his old regiment (33rd Foot) was used to fill in the spaces - Thomas Atkins. However when the specimen pay books were distributed throughout the army - although Pte Thomas Atkins was used - the regiment was given as No 6 Company - 23rd Foot (Royal Welch Fusiliers).

However searches through the pay & muster rolls of the 33rd Foot (Wellington's regiment) have failed to find a soldier named Thomas Atkins.

Another point we tend to think of the contribution of our famous county regiments - the locally recruited regiments only appeared with the service battalions in WW1 (Pals Battalions) - the Royal Welch Fusiliers before WW1 was only 20% recruited from Wales - many others recruited from the inner Cities and Ireland.

Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 9:15 am

This is all very interesting...John Laffin suggests that the term was first used in 1743 in a letter sent from Jamaica, but as to the reliability of this citation, I'm not sure. Its all fascinating because of the Irish attitude towards the war. It would appear that the general consensus was that the war was a terrible idea; 'The Flag of Ireland' published precisely the numbers of Irish soldiers in the various regiments sent to the Cape in 1879 - a critique, one might suspect, of Irish complicity - and much of the nationalist press came down heavily on the side of the Zulus (for instance the 'Chant for the Zulus' poem reproduced during the period of Zulu success in the early spring of 1879). I wonder therefore whether the Irish soldiers who fought were derided back at home for doing so? And if so, would the term 'Tommy Atkins' mean something completely different in Ireland than in England?

Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 10:04 am

Facts, eh! Who needs 'em!

We appear to be in the soggy swamp of Wikipedia theorising here though at least within hailing distance of the Richard Holmes explanation which may well be right (or right-er). I vaguely recall other books in the 1950s that even included facsimile reproductions of the early forms in use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Atkins

Quite why the Wikipedia author is so hard over on the Irish dimension simply escapes me. Wots really interesting is that use of Tommy Atkins has largely collapsed with the residual use of 'Toms' by some Parachute Regiment battalions appearing to be the last vestige of it. It has unfortunately been replaced for most modern media purposes by the inappropriate and insulting word squaddy. A very recent term with its origins in the post WW2 era and providing the Regular soldier with a disdainful label for the National Service conscript. Squaddy, an unworthy soldier who may only be trusted whilst being marched about in a squad.

G

Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 10:35 am

Thought colleagues might be interested in this. I imagine the author's other publication caused some aggravation to "her indoors" !

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rusteze/4475378453/

Steve

Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 1:12 pm

See what I mean? "...one or two theories have always circulated..." might be amended to "quite a few!" One or two seem plausible, others much less so. Presumably Richard Holmes cites a reliable source in Tommy? He didn't mention the point at all in Redcoat, which does cover that period. The Iron Duke seems to have got involved in a multitude of ways! If the document mentioned by Holmes can be produced, all is solved - perhaps.

Yes, apart from my wooden "tommy gun" (three bits of wood, half a dozen nails, c1956!) I can't recall much (or any) use of the term "Tommy" in the second half of the century. Agreed that "squaddie" is an absolutely awful expression - can't recall the media using it but have heard it used, almost as a pejorative term, by the public in garrison towns since around the '70s. And I gather (from this forum over the years) that the US equivalent is "grunt" - is that really correct? Grunt! They get worse, don't they? I see the Wiki piece you've highlighted leads on via "squaddie" to other terms. On thin ground there, as surely all Welsh are Taffys and all Scots are Jocks, whether in the army or not? Ditto Paddy and Mick, although I've always felt that "Mick" sounds a little less attractive than good old Paddy, but perhaps I'm too sensItive. Possibly these terms originated in the army, though, like a lot of slang did? I can confirm that my RAF brother-in-law referred to soldiers as Pongos, as mentioned, but the suggestion that "Rupert" (for any officer) originated from Rupert Bear astounds me. Surely it was chosen as appropriate merely to indicate a typical first name bestowed upon a standard public school chinless wonder?

Peter - your mention of the treatment of the 1879 war by the nationalist press in Ireland is very interesting. I imagine fruitful material in abundance for a project on the topic (why not you?) just as Paul Bryant-Quinn is undertaking in Wales. Those were the days when Home Rule was the issue in parliament - by the early 20th century, independence, rebellion and revolution were more to the fore, and yet very many thousands of Irish (not just the Orangemen of Ulster) fought and died in 1914-18. Only in recent years has the embarrassed Eire establishment come out of denial and acknowledged the huge number of men who "died for King & Country" so that proper remembrance is perhaps possible now.

Steve - well, the man did say "A young man married is a young man marred!" And I think Kipling said somewhere that "A woman is only a woman but a good cigar is a smoke!"

Peter

Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 6:25 pm

Peter,

Thats quite a "tour d'horizon"...but good for us all nevertheless.

I have long ago ceased to expect full documentation on every occasion from Richard Holmes but he is probably right (I deliberately used the term 'right-er') on this occasion though I wish I could remember where I last saw a reproduction of the underpinning detail.

Tommy Gun, of course comes from Thompson.

Squaddie is the mainstay of all military reporting in the Sun and even that lofty individual Sir Sherrard Cooper Coles (our man in Kabul) supposedly used the term 'squaddie humour' in a DIPTEL recently if one of the Sunday papers is correct in its reporting. My long ago experience of soldiers indicates their immediate suspicion of anybody referring to them as a squaddy and especially any officer. However, any soldier referring to himself as a squaddy is usually spot on.
Its a very long time since I ever heard a Welsh person described as Taffy other than in black and white films usually made memorable by John Mills or Richard Attenborough panicking rather too soon just because his ship is sinking or something or other. There is also usually some Cockney soldier saying something like: "'Cor Nobby, the Colonel 'e ain't 'alf a one 'aint 'e!"
Modern experience suggest that many Irish men are still contenbt to be referred to as Micks and a whole Battalion of Iridsh Guardsmen refers to themselves that way, though few other Irish regiments ever did especially further North!. Paddy tends to suggest time spent leaning on a pick or shovel. Jock is more often in Army use as 'Jocks', as in 'looking after my Jocks', though quite what the recipient of this sustained largesse thinks is sseldom reliably ascertained. We then have 'Geordies' a term more liberally applied dahn sarf than amongst the inhabitants of the North.

Your RAF brother-in-law is quite welcomed to refer to soldiers as Pongos, as long as he doesn't mind everybody in the Army not even bothering to refer to his service at all. "Rupert" (for any officer) tends to be used by the soldiers of officers in units that haven't really commissioned anybody from the main public schools for quite some time. And of course for people who really are called Rupert.

Interestingly the President of Ireland still attends the annual service of Remembrance each Remembrance Sunday at St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, as her predecessors have mostly also done since its inauguration. The Dublin Branch of the Royal Britrish Legion plays a significant part in organising it. The Islandbridge Memorial site has also suffered very little vandalism and graffiti since its refurbishment, which is more than can be said of many parts of Great Britain.

G

Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:03 pm

Well I have to admit when you guys across the pond get into naming you, at the least, give it a nice "personal" touch. Tommy Atkins...nice doesn't come off pejorative as you note about squaddie and no man's a number in those regiments and besides the name sounds sartorial. Little different than
our GEE EYE JOE!.........G.I. Joe....he "works" for Uncle Sam and he can sure be a "grunt".

Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 9:27 am

I was always surprised at how disdainful US soldiers were at the use of the term Private and their only being mollified by the appellation Private First Class or Pfc. Even explaining that the 17th and 18thC part origin of the term came from Private Gentleman appeared to make no difference.
Still I suppose being a Pfc is more than made up for by being given more medals than Lord Louis Mountbatten in your first few years of service.

G

Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 12:15 pm

hmmmm..could be the paymaster was tight... got to do something to mollify them all... Wink

Quote for the day...

"Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war".
Thucydides

And...
"If the enemy is range, so are you!"

Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2010 11:21 am

G

Enjoyed your amusing summary of the '50s film scene! John Mills panic? Anyone but he, surely! The ever-present, of course, was the "Cockney Ulsterman", Sam Kydd. Was any film of the '50s or early '60s released without his name in the credits? It would have been he who would have had your "Cor, Nobby!" line. (Unless George Cole got there first).

To Saw and Rich these big-name and middling staples of post-war British cinema (especially in war films) might be less well known (altho' not Mills or Attenborough of course) but they were ubiquitous elements of our childhood and youth over here. Mind you, there was always time for the great, hilarious (and sometimes serious) Fred McMurray in my life! Where are their like today?

Not sure how we got here via Thomas Atkins! Rich, G.I. may seem an uninspiring description but must be entirely preferable to "Grunt." Ugh!

Peter.

P.S. Yes, of course, the Thompson SMG. At the time, I was more interested in just being in the gang, lack of a Tommy gun being a prime reason for exclusion. Happy days!

Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2010 1:55 pm

Sam Kydd fought through the siege and capture of Calais in 1940 having deployed there at very short notoce as a mobilised TA soldier in one of the London based 'Rifles' battalions becoming a PoW for much of WW2. He wrote a very good short book on his Calais experience though I regret that I lost mine some time during the 1960s(?)

There was much more depth to the man than many might think.

G