Why is Portsmouth called Pompey? | Notes and Queries | guardian.co.uk

Why is Portsmouth called Pompey?

• A LADY, known throughout the navy as Aggie Weston, ran a hostel and club for sailors at Portsmouth. She used to give talks to them and attracted a large audience to the Sailors' Rest. It is said that in 1904 she gave a talk on the Roman general, Pompey the Great. She got very worked up about the reasons for his downfall, and when she told of his assassination one of the sailors called out: "Poor old Pompey!" A few days later Portsmouth Football Club had a match at Fratton Park. They played badly, and when eventually the inevitable goal was scored against them a sailor in the crowd called out: "Poor old Pompey!" Others took up the chorus. It became the good-tempered theme for the football terraces and soon attached itself to the town.

  Reg Sanders, Alresford, Hants.

• PORTSMOUTH Public Library issued a leaflet a few years ago with several explanations, including that from your previous correspondent. No-one knows if the nick-name was first applied to the town or to the football team. The football team had its origins in a team from the Royal Artillery. One day, a unit from the RA were doing a duty which in France would have been performed by firemen. Some Frenchmen present noticed this, and gave the RA the nick-name "les pompiers", and the name stuck to the team. Other suggestions: Portuguese sailors accompanying Catherine of Braganza to her wedding with Charles II in Portsmouth noticed a likeness between the town and the then Portuguese possession, Bombay - both low flat islands with a hill in the background. In 1797, La Pompie was one of the ships most involved in the Spithead mutiny. "Pom-pey" sounds like the utterances of drunken sailors asking their way to Portsmouth Point, whence they would take ship. Some Portsmouth-based sailors climbed to the top of Pompey's pillar in Egypt, and became known as the Pompey boys. "Pompey" is northern slang for a prison, and there is a naval prison in Portsmouth. The line from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra - "Pompey is strong at sea" would appeal to nick-name loving sailors. There is, or was, a naval expression "to play Pompey" meaning "to wreak havoc". Any of these might have given rise to the nick-name, but no-one really knows. And to repeat, the earliest written reference is to the football team.

  David Francis, University of Portsmouth Library, Portsmouth, Hants (david.francis@port.ac.uk)