Why “The Lambs”?

I’ve often wondered why, for the first 30 years or so of the club’s existence, Notts were known as “The Lambs”.

To begin, here’s a quick history lesson.

Prosperity came to Nottingham in the early 19th century, thanks to the textile industry. Nottingham lace became famous throughout the world, and by 1831 the population had ballooned to 51,000. Unfortunately, this rapid expansion resulted in the worst slums in the British Empire, apart from India. When the first Reform Bill, which sought to give more people the vote, was rejected by the House of Lords, those living in poverty took up arms and rioted, burning down Nottingham Castle, owned by the Duke of Newcastle, an anti-reformist.

A gang emerged from this angry mob, known as the Nottingham Lambs, who initially fought for the Whigs against their political rivals, the Tories. By the late 1830s, the beer-swilling louts who followed bare-knuckle fighter William Thompson, known as Bendigo, himself a terrible drinker and brawler, became known as the Nottingham Lambs. Bendigo was an icon to the Nottingham poor and became Champion of England in 1839.

The author of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, wrote this:

You didn’t know of Bendigo?
Well, that knocks me out!
Who’s your board schoolteacher?
What’s he been about?
Chock a block with fairy tales;
Full of useless cram,
And never heard of Bendigo
The Pride of Nottingham.

So, did the Notts team get their original nickname from the local gang? This doesn’t seem likely as, according to history, the founder members of Notts County were almost exclusively from the upper class, consisting mainly of aristocrats and prominent industrialists. Maybe the ‘Nottingham Lambs’ were Notts supporters?

My search goes on unless utm can come up with the answer.

The official history book joins the dots between the original lambs of the slums, a pitch invasion at a cricket match in 1817 at the Forest rec. which referred to 'the lambs' and then Notts rough tactics in the early days.

"Lambs" always seem to be associated with Narrow Marsh today, but I think there were two other slums not far off the market square - Queen St/King St area and Vic centre? It could be that other areas had their own gangs but we're obviously not talking paid up membership cards and printed t-shirt, so you would imagine that any group of youths involved in bad behaviour would be labelled "lambs" even if that wasn't how they identified themselves. I'd guess this was the case with Notts - ie not a nickname the club chose for itself or a gang they were directly associated with but a label journalists with allegiances to other clubs came up with due to our players or locals who didn't like this new game and the type of people it was beginning to attract. If Notts hadn't been lumbered with the nickname then I dare say Fword would have taken it if they had been the first to get themselves a reputation for rough play or crowd bother.

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Originally Posted by upthemaggies

"Lambs" always seem to be associated with Narrow Marsh today, but I think there were two other slums not far off the market square - Queen St/King St area and Vic centre?

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The area between Queen/King Street and (I think, and maybe a wider area) Clumber Street once numbered several alleyways with slum housing between Long Row and Parliament Street and was known as 'The Rookery'. A few remain extant.

A 'rookery' is an 18th and 19th century colloquial term given to a city slum occupied by the poor and often overcrowded, crime-ridden and lacking in sanitation.

I'd always understood that the Nottingham Lambs were based in Notts' traditional support heartland of The Meadows but could be wrong about that.

Interesting topic.

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Originally Posted by Masson4

I'd always understood that the Nottingham Lambs were based in Notts' traditional support heartland of The Meadows but could be wrong about that.

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The Meadows seems to have sprung up from nothing with the arrival of the railway industry, so if 'Lambs' were largely (or significantly) Meadows based it would have been mostly men in work living in brand new housing. Looks like Arkwright St was built circa 1852.

The Meadows was originally a large area of wetland/floodplain which extended from the River Leen to the River Trent. This area was drained and gradually developed for a variety of uses, incorporating terraced housing, public houses, factories, warehouses and public buildings such as libraries and swimming baths. The terraced housing was constructed mainly for those that worked on the railways and in the factories.

At the time the Magpies were called the Lambs the Meadows area would definitely not have been classed as slums.

In 1901, Victoria Embankment, a 1¼ mile long masterpiece of Victorian flood defence engineering with a promenade and carriage-way, opened, along with the New Meadows recreation ground.

In 1920, Jesse Boot purchased the remainder of the land within the Embankment adjacent to the Trent and then bequeathed it to the citizens of Nottingham in perpetuity for recreational use and memorial. This included the memorial gardens, playing fields and war memorial.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Masson4

The area between Queen/King Street and (I think, and maybe a wider area) Clumber Street once numbered several alleyways with slum housing between Long Row and Parliament Street and was known as 'The Rookery'. A few remain extant.

A 'rookery' is an 18th and 19th century colloquial term given to a city slum occupied by the poor and often overcrowded, crime-ridden and lacking in sanitation.

I'd always understood that the Nottingham Lambs were based in Notts' traditional support heartland of The Meadows but could be wrong about that.

Interesting topic.

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Only thing I remember from a history lesson of nearly 50 years ago was that due to the terrible living conditions in the Hurt’s Yard area of the city centre the average lifespan was something like 17 in the early 19th century. I could not comprehend that this could be the case in my city less than 150 years beforehand.

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Originally Posted by 60YearsAPie

The Meadows was originally a large area of wetland/floodplain which extended from the River Leen to the River Trent. This area was drained and gradually developed for a variety of uses, incorporating terraced housing, public houses, factories, warehouses and public buildings such as libraries and swimming baths. The terraced housing was constructed mainly for those that worked on the railways and in the factories.

At the time the Magpies were called the Lambs the Meadows area would definitely not have been classed as slums.

In 1901, Victoria Embankment, a 1¼ mile long masterpiece of Victorian flood defence engineering with a promenade and carriage-way, opened, along with the New Meadows recreation ground.

In 1920, Jesse Boot purchased the remainder of the land within the Embankment adjacent to the Trent and then bequeathed it to the citizens of Nottingham in perpetuity for recreational use and memorial. This included the memorial gardens, playing fields and war memorial.

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I'm going to guess that by the time Notts moved to the Castle Ground in the Meadows, "Lambs" had lost a lot of its' potency in much the same way "Teds" eventually became associated with Showaddywaddy and Butlins holiday entertainers akin to Freddie Starr/Russ Abbotts' Madhouse some 40 years after a Ted had been a type of person to genuinely fear. Something your grandfather might have been involved with back in the day and a term elderly people - unable to keep up with the increasing pace of change - used to describe the young who, by now, had very different disciplines, interests and ways of organising themselves. Nicknaming a football club "Lambs" was the final dilution of the name before it disappeared, along with the slums which had once housed them.

The Nottingham Lambs, local politics and a riot in Old Market Square.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02snry4