Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a low or illegal pawnshop, whose owner may also act as a receiver.

1843		Morn. Post (London) 20 Feb. 4/5: James Williams, the keeper of what is termed a dolly-shop [...] was charged with having received stolen property.
1852		Morn. Post (London) 15 Sept. 7/5: The grand jury beg to call attention [...] to the increasing evil of what are called ‘leaving houses’ and had occasion to condemn the ‘dolly shop’ system.
1857		‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 136/1: It sometimes has to be put into the dolly again the next morning, and then there’s 2d. to pay for it for the day. [Ibid.] II 110/2: The dolly-shops are essentially pawn-shops, and pawn-shops for the very poorest. [Ibid.] IV 373/1: Alongside of these we see what is more strictly called dolly or leaving shops, the fertile hotbeds of crime. The dolly shop is often termed an unlicensed pawn-shop.
1866		Liverpool Dly Post 24 Sept. 7/4: The blankets were at a ‘leaving’ or ‘dolly shop’.
1874		J. Greenwood Wilds of London (1881) 8: The price they [i.e. trousers] would fetch at the ‘Dolly Shop’ after she had stolen them from him.
1880		R. Rowe Picked Up in the Streets 125: I ain’t got nuffink to leave at the dolly-shop.
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 407: With the exception of a few dolly-shops, provision-stores, and an occasional gin-palace, the commercial element was conspicuous by its absence.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 24: Dolly Shop, an illegal pawn shop.
1901		Argus (Melbourne) 20 Sept. 6/4: A receiver of stolen property [is] a father, and his place of business, a dolly shop.
1923		Kipling ‘The Janeites’ in Debits and Credits (1926) 157: He put it about that our B.S.M. had run a dope an’ dolly-shop with a Chinese woman.
1932		F. Jennings Tramping with Tramps 212: A Dolly Shop – A receiver’s parlour.