Talk:John Childermass

Speculation on Childermass' birthplace and circumstances

This is entirely outside the novel, but given the scant information about Childermass' history, I propose he was born in the port town of Kingston upon Hull, usually just shortened to Hull. Given that his mother was nicknamed "Black Joan" and she ran a group of child thieves, she'd need to have lived in a place with a population large enough to make running such a gang economically feasible. (If you're going to steal, you need enough people to steal from to make it worthwhile.) Most of the major towns in Yorkshire were in the West Riding, with Hull, Beverley and Bridlington being the major towns in the East Riding.

I further speculate that thieving was not Black Joan's only profession, and, as is a hazard of that profession, she found herself the mother of a child whose father's name she did not know, and so gave her son the name of "Childermass".--Chuckhoffmann (talk) 03:50, 11 September 2025 (UTC)