Re: What is the origin of Geordie?
Posted by Bruce Kahl on February
18, 2000 In Reply to: What is the origin of Geordie?
posted by John M on February 18, 2000
: Why are people from Newcastle (In the North East of England)
called Geordies?
Pasted from the link below:
The most attractive historical explanation for why Newcastle people
are called `Geordies', takes us back to the eighteenth century and
the time of the first Jacobite rising which took place in 1715.
In the previous year George I, a German protestant, had been appointed
as King of England, Scotland and Wales despite the strong claims
of the Catholic James Stuart, who was known as `The Old Pretender'.
The claims of Stuart were strongly supported by a large army of
Scottish and Northumbrian people called the Jacobites who plotted
a rising in Northumberland against the new king under the leadership
of General Tom Forster of Bamburgh. Recruits joined Tom Forster,
from all parts of Northumberland and every town in the county was
visited by Forster's army. All the Northumbrian towns declared support
for the Jacobites withthe one major and very important exception
of Newcastle on the Tyne, which closed its gates to Forster's men.
Newcastle's trade and livelihood depended so vitally on royal approval
that its merchants and gentry could not risk becoming involved in
a plot against the new king. There were some Jacobite sympathisers
in the town, especially among the working classes, but officially
the Newcastle folk had to declare for King `Geordie'. Newcastle's
standing as a supporter of King Geordie angered the Jacobites who
may well have given the Newcastle people their famous nickname Newcastle
people were Geordie's they were the supporters of King George.
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