[f. proper name Tilbury, in sense 1 that of the inventor, in sense 2 of the place: see quot. 1796.]
1. A light open two-wheeled carriage, fashionable in the first half of the 19th c.
1814. Sporting Mag., XLIII. 240. Fifteen tilburies, drawn by fine blood horses.
1842. Dickens, Amer. Notes, vi. (1850), 55/2. Gigs, phaetons, large-wheeled tilburies, and private carriages.
1863. ‘Ouida,’ Held in Bondage (1870), 44. We stood waiting for his tilbury.
† 2. A sixpenny piece; sixpence. slang. Obs.
1796. Grose, Dict. Vulg. T. (ed. 3), Tilbury, sixpence; so called from its formerly being the fare for crossing over from Gravesend to Tilbury fort.
1805. in Brathwait’s Barnabees Jrnl. (1818), Introd. 43, note. As if a man … should say ‘Arriving at Tilbury-fort, I gave a beggar a Tilbury (sixpence) for the name’s sake.’
1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., Tilbury, a sixpence.
Hence Tilbury’d a., of driving gloves, having the finger-palms strengthened with leather to resist the friction of the reins.
1901. Trade Catalogue, Knitted tilbury’d gloves.
