Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a person; often as bad lot under bad adj.; a small company of asssociates.

1841		Dickens Old Curiosity Shop (1999) 139: ‘Grinder’s lot’ approached with redoubled speed [...] Mr. Grinder’s company, familiarly termed a lot, consisted of a young gentleman and a young lady on stilts, and Mr. Grinder himself, who [...] carried at his back a drum.
1861		M.E. Braddon Trail of the Serpent 363: You are a nice lot, you are.
1862		Cork Examiner 28 Mar. 4/3: Chelmsford, a well-bred [...] dog, the property of a nobby lot .
1876		Besant & Rice Son of a Vulcan III 152: She’s not a good lot, my cousin Jenny.
1888		W.B. Churchward Blackbirding In The South Pacific 250: But how the deuce did you get amongst that lot? They are the worse gang in the town.
1897		R. Marsh Beetle 151: You—you’re a pretty lot, upon my word!
1901		W.S. Walker In the Blood 140: I’m goin’ round just to see if any of the old lot [...] recognise me.
1904		Wodehouse Gold Bat [ebook] [H]e was ‘a toughish lot’, who was ‘little, but steel and india-rubber’.
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 158: Anybody think I was a proper rotten lot.

2. (UK Und.) a prison sentence.

1925

N. Lucas Autobiog. of a Thief 13: My last lot was five years, and after that I did three at the Moor (Dartmoor Prison).

3. (Aus./N.Z prison) constr. with the, a life sentence.

1918		V. Marshall Jail From Within (1969) 52: I worked as assistant to a comrade who was ‘doing the whole lot’.
1919		V. Marshall World of Living Dead (1969) 84: Eighteen months! Why, that’s only a sleep compared to some. There’s a pack of fellows here doing the whole lot.
1950		S.J. Baker in Sun. Herald (Sydney) 8 June 9/3: Slang words for sentences of various lengths include: ‘deuce,’ two months; ‘drag,’ three months; ‘sprat,’ six months; ‘the clock,’ twelve months; ‘spin’ or ‘full hand,’ five years; ‘brick,’ ten years; ‘the lot,’ life imprisonment.
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xli 4/3: the lot: A life sentence in prison.
1982		G. Newbold Big Huey 76: Whippy was doing the lot because he had trouble adjusting to life and situations on the outside.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Lot, the. A life sentence.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 110/2: lot, the n. life imprisonment buy or get the lot to receive life imprisonment do the lot to serve life imprisonment.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] Jimmy was doing the lot with Ron Pilley for the underworld murder of Sydney stand-over merchant Daryl Hooker.