In our chat today the question was raised of why, in a political party in a legislative body, a certain officer is called the "whip". The usage is comone in the US.

OED gives the applicable definition as "A member of a particular party in Parliament whose duty it is to secure the attendance of members of that party on the occasion of an important division. Originally called whipper-in."

OED traces this use of "whip" to 1850, in England. If the usage originated there, post-1776, I would be curious how it came across the Atlantic.

Do we have examples of whip, in this sense, being used in 18th century American English?

Here's an article from Malaysia describing the word's origin's in fox-hunting in England. It says that

quote:

The formal title of the British parliamentary “whippers-in” was shortened to just “whip” in the 1840s.

http://www.malaysia-today.net/Blog-e/2006/05/how-term-w...me-to-be-used-in.htm

quote:

Do we have examples of whip, in this sense, being used in 18th century American English? [Note: I assume you mean 19th century.]

It's not easy to check. A search for "whip" gives mostly hits for other meanings, of course. If you limit the search to the context of voting, etc., the hits you get for "whip" are largly op-scan errors for "whig".

Whipper-in is a bit easier to seach. Of its 27 hits in GoogleNewsArchives (1800-1849), 24 are from the Times of London, and it's not clear that the other 3 are relevant. In other words, it appears that for quite a lengthy period this phrase may have been confined to the Times.

[Note: I assume you mean 19th century.]

No, I meant the 18th century. I was thrown off by shuffitz' "post-1776". According to this article Republican James A Tawney was the first Whip in 1897. Unlike the Speaker of the House, the office is not mentioned in the US constitution.