Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. beer costing fourpence a pint; thus the effects thereof.

1866		W. Stamer Life of Adventure II 21: W]hen daylight came S. was still in a state of ‘fourpenny,’ or what was worse still, ‘new rum,’ and I could not get him out of the dirty blankets in which he was coiled up .
1873		J. Greenwood In Strange Company 81: The wofully-shabby few [...] swigged pots of fourpenny.
1880		Arthur Lloyd [perf. ‘The Costermonger’s Song’ 🎵 Then I gets me luncheon, a chunk of bread and cheese / With a gallon jar of fourpenny, oh, at which you wouldn't sneeze.
1894		Mirror of Life 15 Sept. 2/3: [I]t put us in condition for a few pints of fourpenny.

2. an ugly, worn-out old prostitute.

1937–84

Partridge DSUE (1984) 423/1: ca. 1870–1910.

3. (also fourpenny touch) a short, commercial act of intercourse.

1981

(con. c.1900s) A. Harding in Samuel East End Und. 110: The girls who stayed in Spitalfields were very poor. That was what you called a ‘fourpenny touch’ or a ‘knee trembler’ – they wouldn’t stay with you all night.

4. (UK Und.) a cheap lodging house.

1959

‘The Pickpocket’ in Encounter n.d. in Norman Norman’s London (1969) 66: The fourpenny snore and the sweeny / Dwell in the box for you. / So nitto, nark it, stoppo, / Or a carpet’s a lay-down for you.