Tom Tiddler’s ground n.
1. anywhere that money or other items can be obtained easily.
(con. 1848-9) | Personal Adventures in [...] California I 204: Everybody was off to the real Tom Tiddler's ground, to pick up the gold and silver.||
Louth & N. Lincs. Advertiser 17 Dec. 2/6: Subsequent speculations have attempted to convert the desert into a Tom Tiddler’s ground and ignominiopusly failed. | ||
Unsentimental Journeys 135: It is a sound, homely, sagacious organ, and though, at present, it has not scented out the way to Tom Tiddler’s ground, it has warned me of several paths promising enough to look at. | ||
N. Wales Chron. 31 Aug. 3/5: That new Tom Tiddler’s ground called the Isle of Man. | ||
Appleton’s Journal (N.Y.) Nov. 407: He was about to enter the golden ground — Tom Tidler’s ground, where one day he too would be enabled to stoop and gather the golden nuggets. | ‘The Seamy Side’||
Hearts II 79: He would coin a pile of money [...] from his own Tom Tiddler’s Ground. | ||
Bulletin (Sydney) 5 July 7/3: Rev. Charles Clark, after attracting crowded audiences at the Adelaide Town Hall, found a veritable Tom Tiddler’s ground at Broken Hill, where he and the Much-Travelled levied very heavy duties on the silver-miners. [...] [B]oth left the Barrier with sacks full of gold and silver. | ||
Mirror of Life 20 Jan. 3/2: Was there ever such a Tom Tiddler's ground for boxers as South Africa? | ||
Sun. Times (Perth) 8 June 8/2: Lots of people are talking of going Johannesburg-wards [...] Particularly the brokers, who all seem to have satisfied themselves [...] that the Rand is going to be a regular Tom Tiddler’s for their ‘perfesh’. | ||
Pitcher in Paradise 118: The penitent woman stooped down to pick up [...] two sovereigns, a florin, a sixpence and a threepenny bit — apparently Dalzell had been run over on Tom Tiddler’s ground. | ||
Gentleman of Leisure Ch. iii: He discovered that El Dorado was no mere poet’s dream, and that Tom Tiddler’s Ground, where one might stand picking up gold and silver, was as definite a locality as Brooklyn or the Bronx. | ||
🎵 Whilst in Piccadilly till crawling was stopped / Well, that was Tom Tiddler’s ground there. | [perf.] ‘The Cabby’s Lament’||
None But the Lonely Heart 304: It’s all tom tiddlers ground till something happens somewhere. | ||
Gloucs. Echo 24 Mar. 4/3: Tom Tiddler’s ground A new ‘crop’ of lost diamonds picked up in the kimberley district includes a stone weighing one an a quarter carats. |
2. a no-man’s-land, a debatable territory.
Star (Guernsey) 18 Oct. 4/6: Our part of Penge was called ‘Tom Tiddler’s ground,’ for nobody knew in what parish it was in. | ||
Sl. and Its Analogues. | ||
Western Dly Press 10 Aug. 5/6: That part of the Downs [...] hasd become a veritable Tom Tiddler’s ground for different causes, and the air is filled with [...] harangues from rival platforms. | ||
(con. 1920s) Burglar to the Nobility 73: This is a Hall of flipping Justice, not a Tom Tiddler’s Ground for you Heavy Mob. |