subs. (common).—A rascally speculating builder. JERRY-BUILT, adj.—run up in the worst materials. [The use of the term arose in Liverpool circa 1830.]
1883. Daily Telegraph, 23 March, p. 6, col. 1. But the JERRY BUILDER is a man of enterprise and energy, and promptly showed himself equal to the occasion. Ibid., 5 April, p. 2, col. 1. ‘Houses, of the JERRY-BUILT sort especially, when the builders have a difficulty in raising money to finish ’em, are singularly liable to catch fire.’
1884. Pall Mall Gazette, 15 Feb. Two lumps of plaster, fall from the roof of the JERRY-BUILT palace; then the curse begins to work.
1889. Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday, 3 Aug., p. 242, col. 3. ‘Well, sir,’ said a JERRY BUILDER, ‘I don’t think as ’ow it’s right on you to be a-runnin’ the house down as you do.’
1889. Daily Chronicle, 15 Feb. The vestries and district local boards, in fact, have been dominated too much by JERRY-BUILDERS and house-jobbers.
1891. The Sportsman, 21 April, p. 2, col. 1. She lives in a JERRY-BUILT house.
1891. J. NEWMAN, Scamping Tricks, 119. It was in the days when every JERRY-BUILDER … thought he was a railway and dock contractor.
1893. St. James’s Gazette, 2 Nov., p. 4, col. 2. All this loss of life and all this fearful suffering are to be laid at the door of scamping JERRY-BUILDERS or of careless employers.
