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MEANING

 

In southeastern Scotland and in Northumberland, a county in northeastern England, the obsolete name Hob Collingwood designated, in the game of whist, the four of hearts, considered as an unlucky card.

This name occurred, for example, in the following from Live Letters. Answered by the Old Codgers, published in the Daily Mirror (London, England) of Friday 1^st December 1950 [page 9, column 2]:

A Card . . . . .
Letter from “READER,” Sheffield:
What on earth is a “Hob Collingwood”?
Where the deuce have you come across that? Haven’t seen it for forty years or more. It was a name given by North Country card players to the four of hearts, considered an unlucky card.

 

ORIGIN: UNKNOWN

 

Hob is a rhyming form of Rob, pet form of the male forenames Robert and Robin. The surname Collingwood is common in northeastern England, and was formerly borne by several landed families of Northumberland.

But the motivation for the selection of the particular name Hob Collingwood to designate the four of hearts is unclear, as also is the reason for its association with bad luck. In this regard, it is remarkable that, in quotation 1 below, John Jamieson mentioned no etymology in his Supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language.

The following (apparently unfounded) speculation on the origin of the name Hob Collingwood is from A Pack of Cards. Its Stories, Legends, and Romances, published in The Strand Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly (London, England) of July 1911 [page 103, column 2]:

THE FOUR OF HEARTS.

In Northumberland and other parts of the North the four of hearts used to be denominated “Hob Collingwood.” “By the ancient dames,” writes Mr. W. P. Courtney, in his book on English Whist *, “who form so large a section of card life in the provinces, it was considered an unlucky card to be found in the hand.” He does not offer any explanation, but the connection is well ascertained between Hob Collingwood and the tradition of the long-missing heir to an estate, whose body was discovered months after his disappearance in a wood, his right hand clutching the four of hearts. There is a Percy ballad on the subject, in which the last verse informs us:—
O dead he lay upon the hill,
All dabbled in his gore;
Five hearts there were and all were still,
For his own did beat no more.

[* Cf., below, quotation 4.]

 

EARLY OCCURRENCES

 

These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the name Hob Collingwood that I have found:

1-: From Supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (Edinburgh: Printed at the University Press for W. & C. Tait, 1825), by the Scottish lexicographer John Jamieson (1759-1838) [Vol. 1, page 583]—Teviotd is short for Teviotdale, designating the valley of the River Teviot in Roxburghshire, a county in southeastern Scotland:

HOB COLLINWOOD, the name given to the four of Hearts at whist, Teviotd.

2-: From A Glossary of North Country Words, in Use; with their Etymology, and Affinity to other Languages; and occasional Notices of local Customs and popular Superstitions (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Emerson Charnley, 1829), by the British lexicographer John Trotter Brockett (1788-1842) [page 155]:

Hob Collingwood, a name given to the four of hearts at whist; considered by old ladies an unlucky card.

3-: From Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards (London: John Russell Smith, 1848), by the British author and journalist William Andrew Chatto (1799-1864) [chapter 4: Of the different kinds of cards and the marks of the suits, page 266]:

In Northumberland, the Four of Hearts at Whist is sometimes called “Hob Collingwood,” and is considered by old ladies an unlucky card.

4-: From English Whist and English Whist Players (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1894), by the British author William Prideaux Courtney (1845-1913) [chapter 13: The combinations and superstitions at cards, page 285]:

The superstitions of the whist-player are beyond enumeration. They acquire a mysterious hold over his imagination, and baffle every attempt to secure their expulsion. Some of them are to be found in every district of England, from the clubs of London to the remotest ends of local life in the provinces, and others are confined to particular towns or counties. In Northumberland the four of hearts used sometimes to be called by the name of ‘Hob Collingwood,’ and by the ancient dames, who form so large a section of card life in the provinces, it was considered an unlucky card to be found in the hand.