Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a beadle; thus bumbledom, a collective name for corporations, vestries and other official bodies.

[1838		Dickens Oliver Twist (1966) 66: Mr. Bumble was stupefied with astonishment. A beadle ordered to hold his tongue! A moral revolution!].
1855		Paisley Herald 24 Mar. 1/3: The world was recently well nigh brought to an untimely end by a collision between Beakdom and Bumbledom, or a clash between the Coroner’s jurisdiction and the police.
1867		Islington Gaz. 18 Oct. 3/4: The casual in Bumble’s eyes is an abominable thing [...] The ruffian casual laughs at him and sings funny and often times libellous songs [...] as he breaks stones or picks oakum.
1870		Sportsman (London) 27 Jan. 2/1: The betting men cleared ‘off hand,’ as Bumble would say.
1878		Trollope South Africa II 458: If he were to decline [...] there would be all the horrors of Bumbledom before him.
1883		Punch 4 Aug. 51 1: A helpless ‘nuisance’ shunned by the Inspector, Ignored by bumbles and by Boards of Works [F&H].
1892		Punch 3 Dec. 258: He looks as big as all out-of-doors, and e’en bumble was hardly as bumptious.
1901		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Dec. 13/2: Bumbledom had a day out at Melb. Benevolent Asylum lately and enjoyed itself thoroughly. [...] Consider the ‘dignity’ of Bumbledom squatting on a lounge while the aged poor pass before the Presence and kow-tow to their lordly benefactors!
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Apr. 5/5: If anyone attributed the improved health conditions [...] to more enlightened ideas on the part of the local Bumbles he is wrong.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 14 May 1/1: Half the local bodies round the metropolis haven’t got their rate-books signed [...] the bye-laws of most bumbleries are in a hopeless bog.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 20 Mar. 2nd sect. 15/3: [headline] Roads Board Rookery. Bumbledom At Its Worst.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Aug. 36/1: The Queensland Government gives an annual picnic to the local authorities, and these jubilant Bumbles usually show their gratitude by talking furious party politics and turning their Lucinda into a Bedlam.
1920		Morning Bull. (Rockhampton, Qld) 3 Mar. 6/2: We sent wires to every ‘polly’ — / Did you ever hear such folly? / We even sent one to Billy Hughes! / And to every local Bumble.
1936		W.A. Gape Half a Million Tramps 228: An innate hatred of tramps on the part of those staff who have been born and bred in ‘Bumbledom’.