Billy Barlow

English Etymology Named after a real Billy Barlow, who (according to Hotten; see reference) was a well-known street character around the East End of London, and died in Whitechapel Workhouse. Noun en UK obsolete A clown who performs in the streets. en 1960 Bill Wannan A Treasury of Australian Humour 40 for at an election meeting in East Maitland in 1845 William Lipscomb, the local wit, said of the squatters that 'so far from being wealthy, they had produced more Billy Barlows than any other class'. en 2009 Dan Michael Worrall The Anglo-German Concertina: A Social History 1 49 as Jerry White notes in his history of London in the nineteenth century: There were the clowns or “Billy Barlows”; jugglers, some on stilts, and slack-rope walkers; References en 1873 John Camden Hotten The Slang Dictionary en eponyms