A “beadle” used to be a minor official, particularly in England. The word has been around for centuries, although by now it’s mostly obsolete. In all that time it’s been used in various ways, from a “herald” — sort of a town crier who shouted out the latest news or proclamations — to a person who delivered official messages to individuals, to “an under-officer of the forest courts” (there’s a long story there, and I’m ignoring it), to a guy who — I’m not making this up — walked in front of somebody important as they went about town, and carried a ceremonial mace. This last one is probably why you see “drum majors” strutting in front of parade bands today.
If it sounds like a beadle was a very minor functionary, you’re right. And there was a particular beadle of interest in that department. He’s a character in Oliver Twist, and he was the type of beadle who worked in an English church doing minor ceremonial duties.
There’s a particular sort of person who, when they’re doing that particular sort of job, develops a somewhat inflated notion of their own importance, not to mention the criticality of their otherwise trivial duties. Even though we don’t call them “beadles” any more (which is kind of a shame; it’s a fun word to say), there may be more of these folks around than ever. Clerks at the department of motor vehicles, for example, who appear to be very pleased to reject a standard form because of a misplaced mark, and find the letter of the rules they apply to be much more significant than their original spirit, are “beadles” through and through.
Mister Bumble, who is the beadle in Oliver Twist, is an archetype of the self-important minor functionary. Oliver Twist, by the way, is the story of a boy from “Mudfog” England in the 1800s. He’s an orphan in the care of an institution run by the local church, and Mr. Bumble has some authority over the disposition of the orphans. He sends Oliver off to work in a very unpleasant situation when he’s nine years old, and shows up now and then during the story to generally make things worse for Oliver. Not because he has any ill will toward Oliver individually of course — it’s in the nature of a self-important beadle to apply rules in a way that makes things worse for everyone involved.
At this point, it’s probably time to mention that “beadle” is not today’s word. I just had to tell you about it to get to this point in the tale. Oliver Twist, like many of Charles Dickens’ novels, has been enormously popular for a long time, and they’ve occasionally contributed to English itself. In this case, the story contributed the word “bumbledom,” which is “officious and pompous behaviour by minor officials.” Even the phrase “bumbling around” owes something to Mr. Bumble.
Dickens didn’t invent the word “bumble”, but thanks to Mr. Bumble, he managed to popularize it to the point that in the 1850s “The collective Bumbledom of Westminster” made sense to everyone, and in 2011 “…varying degrees of inefficiency and bumbledom by county councils throughout the country” still does. “Bumbledom” is less common in the US than in commonwealth countries, but only because we don’t use the word as often. We have at least as much bumbledom going on here as any place else. So in a (probably vain) attempt to repopularize “bumbledom,” that’s today’s word.
