A blog entitled Standing Well Back (it's about explosives) offers three theories as to why a safebreaker may be known as a peterman. I pesent them in descending order of believability (as perceived by me):
| • | An ancient term for an explosive charge was a 'petard' (hence "hoist by his own petard"), and 'petard man' got transformed to 'peterman' |
| • | It's (Cockney) rhyming slang. A safe is called a can, hence Peter (Pan); a peterman is simply a 'safe man' |
| • | Many Scottish safe crackers ended up in Peterhead prison |
© Haydn Thompson 2023