Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus., also spider) a thief who robs courting couples in parks or at the seaside when their attention is elsewhere.

1950		S.J. Baker in Sun. Herald (Sydney) 8 June 9/1: Detective Doyle [...] says that [...] a ‘rock spider’ is a thief who steals from the handbags of couples sitting or reclining in parks.
1990		see sense 3.

2. (S.Afr.) an Afrikaner.

1970		informant in DSAE (1996).
1982		C. Hope Private Parts 81: ‘Rockspider.’ The beefy man acknowledged this traditional insult by switching into his native Afrikaans with a terrible oath about Hilton’s mother’s womb.
1982		P. Slabolepszy Sat. Night at the Palace (1985) 19: Let the rock spiders go fight. It’s their bladdy country.
1990		R. Malan My Traitor’s Heart (1991) 54: The tyranny of the rockspiders, crunchies, hairybacks, ropes and bloody Dutchmen [...] Afrikaners.
2005		A. Lovejoy Acid Alex 17: The same kid taught me [...] all the words for Rockspiders – Crunchies, Hairybacks, Clutchplates, Planks, Ropes, Boneheads, Dutchmen – Afrikaners-vrot-bananas.
2008		Sun. Times (S. Afr.) Lifestyle 27 Jan. 10: My mum got this new boyfriend: a real rock-spider. [...] He used to abuse us, not sexually but physically.
2011		Mail and Guardian (Johannesburg) 17 May 🌐 ‘Those bloody rock-spiders,’ we Engelsmanne would shot.

3. (Aus/N.Z., also rocky, spider) a sexual offender, usu. a paedophile or child molester.

1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 45: Spider Child molester – as in ‘Sat down beside her.’.
1993		Canberra Times (ACT) 8 Mar. 10/6: James Francis Murray, 40, and Frederick John Owens, 35, told him they had ‘knocked’ a rock spider — jail slang for a child molester.
2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 rock spider n. sexual offender – specifically against children.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 155/1: rock spider n. a paedophile [poss. from an earlier sense of ‘rock spider’ = a petty thief who preys on couples by the seashore and in parks].
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] Informers were at the bottom of the prison social ladder alongside the rock spiders [ibid.] It forced Katingal authorities to utilise two cell-blocks for the dogs and rockies.
2012		L. Redhead ‘Grassed’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] At least I’m not like your rock-spider husband. Pushing drugs on little girls so I can get into their white cotton panties.
2018		C. Hammer Scrublands [ebook] Defoe’s article [...] was all sizzle and no sausage. [...] it had all the stuff about Swift being a rock spider, but nothing [...] of him getting sprung from jail by powerful people.
2023		A. Nette Orphan Road 172: ‘What the fuck does that say?’ ‘Rockspider [...] ‘Underworld slang for paedophile’.