subs. (workmen’s).—1. A bully; and (2) a foreman; a GANGER (q.v.).
1886. Chambers’s Journal, 18 Sept., p. 599. HEAD-BEETLER is used (in Ulster) in the same vulgar sense as ‘Head-cook and bottle-washer in some localities. The ‘beetle’ was a machine for producing figured fabrics by the pressure of a roller, and HEAD-BEETLER probably means the chief director of this class of work.
