Green’s Dictionary of Slang

anything or anyone seen as exceptional, wonderful, also attrib.

[1861		Manchester Courier 7 Dec. 7/2: Mr Cunningham’s ‘Doctor’ beat Mr Bracewell’s ‘Bobby Dazzler’].
[1866		N&Q X 290/2: What a Lancashire man would sometimes call a ‘regular bobby-dazzler’, a Cornishman would call a ‘regular morgan-rattler’].
1887		Sacramento Daily Record (CA) 5 Sept. 2/2: The boys start resplendent. They have [...] a new uniform which is of a color and that that [...] Sam Weller would have characterized as a ‘bobby-dazzler’.
1887		Era (London) 30 Apr. 23/3: [advert] Silly Billy Elliott and Soft Tony Benson the greatest Variety Comedians that ever smashed eggs. [...] ‘Sledge Hammerstein’. A bobby-dazzler.
1891		Blackburn Standard 7 Feb. 6/3: Bobby-dazzler (a grand one). A lass is a bobby-dazzler when hoo’s getten a new frock on.
1893		Euroa Advertiser 6 Oct. 3/4: The last quarter [of the match] was a ‘bobby-dazzler’.
1903		‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 22 Nov. 1/6: ‘Wot bobby dazzler masons or brickies they might er made’.
1907		Brisbane Courier 29 May 6/3: Nipper stoushed Billy in the eye and Billy copped him a bobby-dazzler on the boko.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 19 June 3rd sect. 17/7: Don't forget that tbe Children’s Protection Society have the hall next Wednesday night at the Star. It’s a bobby-dazzler of a programme, and the kiddies get the chink.
1913		D.H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers I 122: She had got a new cotton blouse on [...] ‘Oh, my stars!’ he exclaimed. ‘What a bobby-dazzler!’.
1925		S. O’Casey Juno and the Paycock Act I: I saw yous [...] hangin’ on his arm – a thin, lanky strip of a Micky Dazzler, with a walkin’-stick an’ gloves.
1928		V. Palmer Passage 138: He’s going to make a bobby-dazzler of a driver.
1936		‘Banjo’ Paterson Shearer’s Colt 93: ‘That’s a bobby-dazzler of a colt,’ said Fred.
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 159: You bloody beaut! [...] You bloody bobby-dazzler!
1959		I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 325: The appearance of new clothes is another signal for pinches and derision [...] They call a boy a ‘Spiv’, ‘Gaudy Georgey’, ‘Bobby Dazzler’.
1968		S. Gore Holy Smoke 51: He sends out a real grouse storm. A proper bobby-dazzler.
1975		R. Macklin Queenslander 269: She’s a bobby dazzler, isn’t she.
1987		P. Robinson Gallows View (2002) 15: And she won’t be hard on the eyes, will she? A right bobby-dazzler, don’t you think?
1995		M. Simpson ‘Prufrock Scoused’ Catching Up with Hist. 22: Mind you some bobby-dazzlers too!
2001		G. Coughlan Everyday Eng. and Sl. 🌐 Dickey Dazzler (n): an over dressed man.
2001		C. McPherson Port Authority 14: Their mammies had turned them into mickey dazzlers telling them the sun, moon and stars shone out of their heads.
2018		Guardian 28 mar. 3/2: ‘The Anglo-Saxon village sites alone are all absolute bobby-dazzlers’.
2022		K. Lister on Twitter 25 Aug. 🌐 Postie just told me I'm a 'reet bobby dazzler, lass' [...] FYI. This wasn’t out of blue catcalling. I am wearing a neon pink dress & fluffy shoes, the brightness of which startled him.