subs. (streets’).—To sing in the streets. Whence, GRIDDLING = street-singing; GRIDDLER = a street-singer.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor. Got a month for GRIDDLING in the main drag.
1877. BESANT and RICE, This Son of Vulcan, pt. I., ch. xii. Cardiff Jack’s never got so low as to be GRIDDLING on the main drag—singing, I mean, on the high-road.
1888. BESANT, Fifty Years Ago, ch. iv., p. 53. They [street singers] have not yet invented Moody and Sankey, and therefore they cannot sing ‘Hold the Fort’ or ‘Dare to be a Daniel,’ but there are hymns in every collection which suit the GRIDLER.
1890. Daily Telegraph, 20 May. Singing or shouting hymns in the streets on Sundays. To this system the name of GRIDLING has been applied. The GRIDLERS, it was stated, were known to boast, as they returned to their haunts in Deptford and Southwark, how much they could make in a few hours.
