Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an interfering busybody.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 445/1: –1868.

2. a monthly nurse, a midwife.

1864		Sun 28 Dec: n.p.: A regular gamp... a fat old dowdy of a monthly nurse [F&H].
1868		Brewer Phrase and Fable quoted from Daily Tel. 394: Mr. Gathorne Hardy is to look after the gamps and Harrises of the Strand .
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Dec. 33/1: Re the birth-rate problem, if there is one. I am just recovering from an attack of Sairey Gampism. [...] During our recent infliction, there were five distinct Gamps in the house before we were through.
1914		Nottingham Eve. Post 6 May. 5/5: Mrs. Gamp: [...] it is often quite a toss-up if you can secure a properly trained nurse.
1946		J. Cary Moonlight (1995) 180: ‘Have you seeen a doctor?’ ‘No, but there’s a woman down the street who knows about these things.’ ‘I know those women [...] And this man was prepared to let some wretched gamp look after you.’.
1966		I. Vaughan These Were My Yesterdays 63: Charles was born in a tent [...] I did not even have a doctor – only my old gamp.

3. an umbrella.

[1843–4		Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit (1995) 312: Mrs Gamp had a large bundle with her, a pair of pattens, and a species of gig umbrella; the latter article in colour like a faded leaf, except where a circular patch of a lively blue had been dexterously let in at the top].
1866		Morn. Post 5 Dec. 6/4: Let each one bear in hand a gamp.
1875		Star (Guernsey) 12 June 2/4: The Inevitable Gamp [...] without a word of warning his umbrella is whisked up.
1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co. 70: The rustiest, most stump-worn and lettuce-shaped ‘gamp’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Jan. 12/3: The only return the shareholders in the German umbrella company will ever get for their money will be the satisfaction of seeing their defaulting clients among the goats on the day of universal reckoning. We speak from sad experience. In the sad sweet long ago we lent the office gamp to a member of the staff.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 29 Nov. 6/3: So he put on his hat and he shouldered his gamp.
1895		J. Caminada Twenty-Five Years of Detective Life I 333: He will never more / The Anarchists attempt to floor, / The D. who broke his gamp at Ardwick Green, O.
1900		Sporting Times 31 Mar. 3/2: She was choleric and corpulent, and aged withal, and pursuing it [i.e. a bus] with tortoise like speed, brandishing a well-worn gamp the while.
a.1905		Murray, Leigh & LeBrunn [perf. Marie Lloyd] Sleep! Sleep! 🎵 [H]e lifted his gamp up and gave him such a dig.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 25 Nov. 4/7: The large gamp of Bob Williams, recently-deceased flat bookie, came into the possession of Joe Van Praag. Joe’s daughter took it to Holy Joe for repairs. ‘This is a bookmaker's umbrella,’ he groaned in horrified accent.
1911		E. Dyson ‘Susie Gannon’s Young Man’ in Benno and Some of the Push 112: She hurled thunderbolts at the laughing hoydens from the end of her fat gamp.
1913		H. Champion ‘While I Was licking My Stamp’ 🎵 [She] sloshed me with her gamp.
1916		Truth (Wellington) 15 Apr. 5/4: The youngster’s gamp has played a part [...] It kept him safely from the weather.
1929		‘Henry Green’ Living (1978) 312: I brought the old gamp.
1932		D.L. Sayers Have His Carcase 128: Square-crowned bowler, big green gamp.
1946		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 12 Sept. 1/5: [cartoon] Going a Tramp? Take your Gamp!
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 293/1: gamp umbrella.

4. see Mrs Harris and Mrs Gamp under Mrs n.