1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor. Got a month for griddling in the main drag.
1877. Besant and Rice, 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. W. 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.
Gridiron, subs. (American).—1. The United States’ flag; the Stars and Stripes. Also Stars and Bars; Blood and Entrails; Gridiron and Doughboys; and, in speaking of the Eagle in conjunction with the flag, the Goose and Gridiron.
2. (common).—A County Court Summons. [Originally applied to Writs of the Westminster Court, the arms of which resemble a gridiron.]
1859. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. xxi. He collects debts for anybody in the neighbourhood, takes out the abhorred gridirons, or County Court summonses.
3. (thieves’).—The bars on a cell window. Fr., les gaules de Schtard.
The Gridiron, subs. phr. (common).—The Grafton Club. [Where the grill is a speciality.]
On the Gridiron, adv. phr. (common).—Troubled; harassed; in a bad way; on toast (q.v.).