Green’s Dictionary of Slang

no breakfast at all.

1939

Beds Times 25 Aug. 6/2: In the eastern Counties they galk about giving the pigs a ‘Norfolk breakfast’ on Sunday mornings — which means they get no breakfast.

see Yarmouth capon n.

1. a dupe.

1600

J. Day Blind Beggar of Bednall-Green Act I: This Tom Tawney coat here gulls me, make me your cheat, your gull, your strowd, your Norfolk Dumpling.

2. a native of Norfolk.

1608		R. Armin Nest of Ninnies 17: He lookt like a Norfolke dumpling, thicke and short.
1662		Fuller Worthies (1840) II 446: ‘Norfolk dumplings’ This cannot be verified of any dwarfish or diminutive stature of people in this county [...] it relates to the fare they commonly feed on.
1670		J. Ray Proverbs 245: Norfolk dumplings. This referres not to stature of their bodies; but to the fare they commonly feed on and much delight in.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1831		Satirist (London) 14 Aug. 151/3: The following are the names of a few of the company [...] A Norfolk dumpling...Mr. Wodehouse.
1878		Luton Times 12 July 7/5: Norfolk — ‘A Norfolk dumpling’.
1891		‘’Arry on a ’ouseboat’ in Punch 15 Aug. 77/1: If I don’t give them dashed Norfolk Dumplings a doing, I’ll eat my old ’at.
1899		Cornishman 25 May 4/2: Among country nicknames is [...] Cambridgeshire camel, Essex calf, Norfolk dumpling.

3. (Aus.) a prisoner on Norfolk Island or the act of imprisoning someone there [‘Conditions on Norfolk Island ...were appalling; Norfolk dumplings lie heavy on the stomach—fair ‘settlers’, as was a term on the Island’ (DSUE)].

1874

M. Clarke Term of His Natural Life (1897) n.p.: Norfolk Dumpling [...] that’s what we call sending ’em to Norfolk Island, the most out-and-out cruel punishment that they can give.