Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a ‘rag-and-bone’ man, a scavenger.

1891		Daily News 11 Mar. 3/3: Costermongers, wood-cutters, and ‘totters’, men who lounged about areas in the hope of getting old bottles and things from servants .
1932		F. Jennings Tramping with Tramps 211: Totters – scavengers of dustbins.
1963		N. Dunn Up the Junction 108: A totter loomed into sight through the drizzle, pushing his barrow piled with old clothes, gas-fires, bits of linoleum.
1972		Galton & Simpson ‘Man of Letters’ Steptoe and Son [TV script] I’ve interviewed and photographed every totter within two miles.
1981		(con. c.1910) A. Harding in Samuel East End Und. 224: He was a wardrobe dealer, but more a rag-and-bone bloke years ago – they used to call them ‘totters.’ [...] Before 1914 you were a ‘totter’, but not after. You was a dealer after.
1994		C. Dexter Daughters of Cain (1995) 42: To totters and toffs – in a levelish ratio – / My darling K offers her five-quid fellatio.
1999		C. Logue Prince Charming 206: A totter (an itinerant down-market street dealer – anything that would fit on a cart) arrived with some lead under a horse blanket.
2017		Twitter 1 Nov. 🌐 An East End Rag & Bone man on his rounds - not so many horse drawn Totters around nowadays...more likely to be in a white Transit.