Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a watchman, a beadle [punning cant; supposedly linked to the improvement of the London watch system by Charles I, but no use of the word for 150 years afterwards is recorded].

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1822		T. Greenwood ‘The Tears of Pierce Egan’ in Hindley James Catnach (1878) 117: The Town felt regret as the bell tolled the news / And no one rejoiced — but the Charleys!
1826		‘Nocturnal Sports’ in Universal Songster II 179/2: I mills the watchmen-varment. [...] ’Cause, ye see, I hates your cust charleymen.
1827		Commercial Advertiser (N.Y.) 1 Feb. 2/3: The Charlies being called, before [the rowdies] could burn the ken, . . . they were nabbed and carried to the nask, . . . and in the morning brought before the Beak.
1832		Egan Bk of Sports 68: A good milling was quite familiar to his feelings, a black eye a common occurrence; carried home by the Charleys, out of all calculation.
1833		‘Lady Barrymore’s Lamentation in Quod’ in Convivialist in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 19: The Charleymen who oft I’ve floor’d, / I know will all rejoice.
1834		N.Y. Times 7 June 2/6: All this the prisoner very calmly submitted to; but when he was requested in a very imperious manner to walk to the watch-house in the custody of a Charley, he showed fight.
1838		Crim.-Con. Gaz 1 Sept. 17/3: His transgressions never exceeded the borrowing of a charleys lantern.
1841		C. Mackay Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions (1869) 246: Every youth on the town was seized with the fierce desire of distinguishing himself by knocking down the ‘charlies,’ being locked up all night in a watch-house, or kicking up a row among loose women and blackguard men in the low dens of St. Giles’s.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 18 Feb. 4/1: The charleys were soon ‘to the fore’ and with great promptitude, conveyed our hero to durance vile. The cells of a watchhouse were not much to his liking.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 31: Go on a bender, kick up a row in Leonard street, or bother the ‘Charlies’ a little.
1851		Manchester Spy (NH) 4 Oct. n.p.: You can’t teach her [i.e. a wife] better manners — for Charley’s [sic] are thick as blackberries.
1859		G.A. Sala Gaslight and Daylight 58: Intimately connected, in association and appearance, with the Jarveys, were the Charleys, or watchmen [...] we used to beat those Charleys, to appropriate their rattles, to suspend them in mid air.
1868		Cork Examiner 6 Apr. 4/1: She screamed until the watchman came to her assistance [...] A brother charlie pursued and arrested [the attacker].
1873		Sl. Dict.
1881		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 17 May. 7/4: Against the Magistrates and the old Charlies (parish constables) [...] Brine felt the fiercest resentment.
1884		A. Griffiths Chronicles of Newgate 210: A few feeble watchmen, the sorely-tried and often nearly useless ‘Charlies’.
1894		A. Morrison Tales of Mean Streets (1983) 21: The night-watchmen — a sort of by-blow of the ancient ‘Charley,’ and himself a fast vanishing quantity — is the real professional.
1901		Sheffield Dly Teleg. 11 Apr. 9/7: The old watchman, nicknamed ‘Charlie’.
1914		(ref. to late 19C) Dly Gaz. for Middleborough 9 Jan. 2/5: The ‘Charleys’ [...] existed side-by-side with the Bow-street patrols.
1926		Sun. Post 23 May 9/4: Watchman Bluff Scares Burglars. Strange experinece of ‘Bond Street Charlie’.

2. (US) a policeman.

1846		D. Corcoran Picking from N.O. Picayune 50: Another [policeman] was making a rough draft, with his pencil, of a ‘Charley on duty’.
1847		Bell’s Life in Sydney 27 Feb. 2/3: A good up-standing mill [...] without fear of incurring the displeasure of the beaks, or charleys.
1853		Bell’s Life in Sydney 16 July 2/6: Abraham Lewis was charged with having knocked down Sergeant Swainston. The Charley stated that the prisoner [etc.].
1858		‘Shadow’ Midnight Scenes 98: Seeing every one in a bit of excitement, ‘Charley’ sees no reason why he should not get excited too, and he forthwith breaks out upon the old woman and her customers.
1902		Eve. Teleg. 30 Aug. 3/3: They made such a noise in the Ram’s Horn churchyard that the attention of a policeman (a ‘Charlie’) was called, and he sprang his rattle.

3. a gold watch [pun on sense 1].

1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1867		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 21 Sept. n.p.: [He was] charged with the larceny of two ‘charleys’ and a half ‘century’ from a lady in the city [...] The watches being valuable — one having no less than ten ‘sparks’ on the case.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 16: Charley, a gold watch.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).