Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. pawned.

1855		Yokel’s Preceptor 30: Lumbered, Things stopped for rent.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 706/2: from 1810.

2. (Aus./UK Und.) arrested.

1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 133: [note] Lumbering Being arrested.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 115: Lumbered — taken-up on suspicion, supposed in irons.
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 5 Dec. 3/1: William Wicks [...] who had been lumbered in the watchhouse the overnight.
1901		W.S. Walker In the Blood 171: The push [...] were of the opinion that she had been ‘lumbered,’ and went to look for her in all the police courts.
1909		Age (Queanbeyan, NSW) 12 Jan. 2/6: Supposing any one of us was to get lumbered and flopped into that match box clink and a fire was to burst out, you can bet your sweet life that the lovely John Hopper and his missus and the kinchins would do a Carrington and leave the poor philgarlick in the booby hatch to frizzle.
1919		V. Marshall World of Living Dead (1969) 130: The ‘hum’, the unskilled derelict [...] who stands upon the ‘pub’ corner kerb, ‘bites’ all and sundry [...] succeeds in getting lumbered for ‘vag’.
1938		G. Kersh Night and the City 27: I got bleedn lumbered up Oxford Street last Fursday night.
1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 160: Harry’s been lumbered by them dirty copper bastards.
1965		R.H. Conquest Horses in Kitchen 49: He’s in the can at Maitland [...] He got lumbered outside Newcastle. Copped a month.
1975		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Apr. 44: So I get lumbered and they ask a monkey not to oppose bail. [Ibid.] 45: It’s a wonder we all weren’t lumbered.
1981		T. Wilkinson Down and Out 125: That’s why I got out of it, before I got fucking lumbered.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Lumbered. Arrested or found out.

3. imprisoned.

1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 28 Mar. 10/1: The rev. brudder replies subsequently in the Rum, and admits that he was lumbered in Launceston because he was poor, and was reduced to sharing a tank and cadging for grub with another Christian.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 47: Lumbered, imprisoned.
1909		Age (Queanbeyan, NSW) 12 Jan. 2: The lockup at Watson Bay [...] isn’t fit to put a man in. Some people, perhaps, don’t care much, especially if they are shicker, where they gets lumbered.

4. short of money, indebted.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 706/2: since ca. 1946.