Green’s Dictionary of Slang

sawney n.¹

a fool.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Sawny, a Fool.
1762		Bridges Homer Travestie (1764) II 160: Follow’d this heroe hard at a-se / Nor flower did he move, nor faster, / Than Sawney when he tends his master.
1802		Sporting Mag. June XX 173/1: Ev’ry signal draws some sawny / To the motley groupe at night.
1815		‘Some push along with Four in Hand’ Garland of New Songs (21) 3: Spoonies, Sawnies, come be off.
1829		London Standard 19 Jan. 3/4: Spoon — a sawney, a Johnny Raw, a rural, a goose, a pump, a sappy.
1831		Satirist (London) 13 Nov. 253/3: I shall be ruined; already have many of my fair visitors left me, and all the young sawneys, who used to stand plucking so genteelly, have taken themselves off to other houses.
1849		Sam Sly 19 May 3/2: We advise M—a B—d [...] not to be seen talking to that soft sawney so much.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1871		E.K. Wood Dene Hollow I 192: I hope that wench, Pris, has kept my supper warm. [...] She’s a regular sawney, though, in some things.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 June 4/2: [T]he Queen and the Generals alike are too frankly showing that they take colonists for boobies, who not only run their necks voluntarily into a noose, but can be dosed with flattery by the ladleful, without discovering that they are being wheedled to their undoing, and secretly derided as sawnies.
1888		S.O. Addy Sheffield Gloss. 200: Sawney, a simpleton.
1899		Cornishman 27 July 6/2: Sawny, sap-pate, simkin [...] all synonyous, in the language of the canting crew, for fool.
1902		H. Lawson ‘Ruth’ in Roderick (1967–9) II 25: Would I shrink from the eyes of the clown— / From the eyes of the sawney who’d boast of success with a girl of the town.
1907		Marvel 26 Jan. 16: He looks a sawney, if you like!
1947		D. Davin For the Rest of Our Lives 28: Didn’t ye hear the old Sawney talking [...] on that B.B.C. of theirs?
1950		C. Harris Three-Ha’Pence to the Angel 93: Everyone’s a sawney ter you, except your racing friends.
1953		I. Hamilton Till Human Voices Wake Us 126: The sawney did talk about it [i.e. being beaten by a warder] in Bluey’s hearing.
1966		P. White Solid Mandala (1976) 147: Now don’t tell me Bill Poulter isn’t a sawney.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 280: Sawney, a Scotsman and also a fool.
1993		M. Verdon Shawlies, Echo Boys, the Marsh and the Lanes 35: When he was shown the gononstrips, and not being a sawney, he spotted a way for doing foxers.