Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a person, esp. a young or small person, a child.

1895		W. Pett Ridge Minor Dialogues 80: I’ll tell mar about you, I will, you saucy young kipper, you!
1900		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘You Can’t Go By Looks’ Sporting Times 31 Mar. 1/4: You can’t go by looks, look at Billy Mugg’s nipper, / Who’s a smart little kid, but a saucy young kipper, / Though ’e ain’t more than three and a bit.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 141/2: Giddy young whelp (London, 1896). Youth about town [...] Giddy kipper was the first development.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 305: Myler dusted the floor with him [...] Handed him the father and mother of a beating. See the little kipper not up to his navel and the big fellow swiping.
1938		W. Watson Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day (2000) 216: You naughty girl. You giddy old kipper. Where have you been?
1954		(con. 1940s) T.A.G. Hungerford Sowers of the Wind 204: The kippers have got orders not to go out about alone now.
1963		A. Baron Lowlife (2001) 73: The little kipper toddled between us, holding both our hands.

2. (Aus.) an Englishman, an English immigrant; also attrib. [like the kipper, he is ‘two-faced with no guts’].

1946		R. Rivett Behind Bamboo 397/1: Kipper, Englishman.
1946		Sun. Sun (Sydney) 8 Aug. Supplement 15: An able seaman on a kipper warship called the Eagle [OED].
1962		Marshall & Drysdale Journey among Men 190: This unloveable trait has led to the application of the expression kipper to a certain type of Englishman. A kipper, by virtue of its processing, has become two-faced with no guts.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 17: This is a terrific opportunity for you — a ruddy kipper — to see something of the real Australia.
1975		Sun. Times Mag. 12 Oct. 76: Eric Heffer once referred to his Parliamentary colleagues as ‘a load of bloody kippers; two faced and no guts’.
1980		B. Hornadge Aus. Slanguage (1989) 170: Another [...] common expression directed at Englishmen – a Kipper.
1985		R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 107: These kippers have jumped the gun [...] Now they want to get smart about it.

3. one’s face.

2000		Indep. Rev. 8 Mar. 7: ‘I’ll hit him with a bottle [...] right in his kipper,’ (That’s Mancunian for ‘face’, incidentally).
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 23: Fonzie’s not exactly knocked out to see my own cheery kipper knocking at the door.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 14: The kipper on her when we walkas in here — strippers on and everything.

4. (Irish) a red-head.

2004		P. Howard Teenage Dirtbag Years 16: Who’s the kipper?
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 72: She’s got red hair and I’ve never really been into kippers.