or jarvis, subs. (old: now recognised).—1. A hackney coachman.
1811. GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. JARVIS.
1819. J. H. VAUX, Memoirs, s.v. JERVIS.
1823. BADCOCK (‘Jon Bee’), Dictionary of the Turf, etc., s.v. JARVY.
1835. BEULER, Tomarroo, or The Devil and the Hackney Coachman. JARVEY! JARVEY!—Here I am, your honour.
1837. CARLYLE, The French Revolution, II, iv. 3. The Glass-coachman waits; and in what mood! A brother JARVIE drives up, enters into conversation; is answered cheerfully in JARVIE-dialect, etc.
1845. B. DISRAELI, Sybil; or, The Two Nations, V. vii. I pity them ere JARVIES a sitting on their boxes all the night and waiting for the nobs what is dancing.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, iii. 360. He didn’t take the corners or the crossings careful enough for a regular JARVEY.
1882. SERJ. BALLANTINE, Some Experiences of a Barrister’s Life, ch. ii., p. 19 (6th ed.). The driver [of a hackney-coach] was called a JARVEY, a compliment paid to the class in consequence of one of them named Jarvis having been hanged.
1883. Daily Telegraph, 16 Dec. The assembled Londoners placed more faith in the real four-wheeler, the grey horse, and the loquacious JARVEY.
2. (old).—A hackney coach.
1821. W. T. MONCRIEFF, Tom and Jerry, ii. 4. A rattler … is a rumbler, otherwise a JARVEY … better known perhaps by the name of a hack.
1835. HOOK, Gilbert Gurney, III. i. I stepped into the litter,… at the bottom of the ‘JARVY.’
1838. GLASCOCK, Land Sharks and Sea Gulls, i. 203. And now … was Waddy seen to enter a JARVEY, and to drive from the Temple Court.
1865. G. F. BERKELEY, My Life and Recollections, i. 275. Dan McKinnon slipped through the windows of the first, and so on out of the others, till the whole string of ‘JARVIES’ were bumping in procession to the destination, having no one in them.
