Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a criminal beggar (often well-dressed) who travels the country showing off various forged certificates referring to losses in fires, shipwrecks or similar disasters and hoping thereby to get financial aid.

1842		Northern Star 28 May 5/6: [advert] Price 4d. in wrapper [...] a Full and Complete Exposure of the various impositions and Schemes daily practisced by every descrption of Vagrants [...] from the Lurker up to the humble Thimble-rigger. By a Vagrant of Fifteen Years’ Experience.
1845		Gloucester Citizen 11 Jan. 7/2: Known in the underworld as ‘lurkers,’ [...] their favourite game is to pose as a friend of some service member of the family temporarily out of funds.
1845		Gloucester Citizen 11 Jan. 7/2: The ordinary tale-pitcher has a respect for the practitioner known as the ‘heavy lurker,’ who works among the aristocracy.
1851		Lancaster Gaz. 5 Apr. 3/5: Lurkers are persons who go about begging with briefs, containing false statements of losses by fire, shipwrecks, etc.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 313/1: The imitation was excellent, and the ‘lurker’ swore hard and fast to the worthy justice that he (the justice) did write it.
1870		East London Obs. 19 Mar. 6/6: The carpenter [...] found himself enlisted by a band of ‘lurkers’ — sham workmen.
1871		G.A. Brine letter July 3 in Ribton-Turner (1887) n.p.: I have been a ‘shallow cove’ (i.e. a member of the land navy; also a ‘highflyer’ (i.e. a begging-letter impostor); a ‘lurker’ (one who is forty different trades, and master of none). My favourite ‘lurk’ was butcher, tallow chandler, or currier.
1881		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 1 Feb. 7/4: He’s one of us, after all. A ‘lurker,’ I suppose [...] Wonder what’s his ‘lurk?’ Looks like a broken-down parson.
1884		Leics. Chron. 24 May 12/4: ‘That’s a lurker, a chap who fakes a begging letter among the gentry,’ said Jerry.
1887		W.E. Henley ‘Villon’s Good-Night’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 174: You bible-sharps that thump on tubs, / You lurkers on the Abram-sham.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 47: Lurker, an impostor.

2. (Aus.) a petty criminal.

1906		E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 96: I set up ez er professional lurker.
1933		Sun. Times (Perth) 29 Jan. 45/9: There waas salaried jobs for the fortunate few, / Including the loafer and lurker.