Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to arrest, to imprison.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Lumbering, being arrested.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 173: Lumbering him never afterwards gave Morland any horrors.
1830		W.T. Moncrieff Heart of London II i: He’s been working on the Mace – doing it up very blue, and so they’ve lumbered him for a few moons.
1850		Fast Man 8:1 n.p.: [H]e said ‘he witnessed a gallows deal of interruption, and if he saw any more of it, he’d have the party copt and lumbered, by the beadles’.
1858		Bell’s Life in Sydney 11 Sept. 3/2: ‘Her husband [...] was lumbered’ for ‘cracking a crib’.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. 9/2: Black Bess lumbered Mother Shooter to the Nick yesterday. She got a dream for chovy bouncing. The prison van took Mother Shooter to Darlinghurst jail yesterday. She got six months for shoplifting.
1892		‘Fanny Flukem’s Ball’ in Bird o’ Freedom (Sydney) in J. Murray Larrikins (1973) 40: The cops then came upon the scene / And lumbered one and all. / A quid and costs was the result / Of Fanny Flukem’s ball.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Jan. 4/4: Half the beer loafers whom the police lumber [...] are found whining that they hustle for honest bread.
1911		L. Stone Jonah 275: The Johns down ’ere don’t know ’im, an’ they’ll lumber ’im.
1932		Sun. Mail (Brisbane) 13 Nov. 20/7: ‘Joe was buckled last night. He was all keyed up with angie and tried to take a twist out of a demon, he dug his heels in and it took three of them to lumber him.’ [...] Joe was under the influence of cocaine. He used insulting language to a detective, and resisted so violently when placed under arrest that it took the detective and two other officers to remove him to the watch house.
1938		G. Kersh Night and the City 27: An’ up comes a bleedn’ rozzer and lumbers me.
1948		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 25 Dec. 6/5: [T]he John-hops mistook him for a university student and lumbered him.
1953		K. Tennant Joyful Condemned 17: If there’s a warrant out for you, and they’re breathing after you, they’ll lumber you sooner or later.
1961		(con. 1920s) J. Sparks Burglar to the Nobility 73: We’re lumbering you for bashing Mappin and Webb’s window ansd nicking all that gear.
1968		S. Gore Holy Smoke 58: Pretty thick in the skull in the normal way, but cunnin’ as sewer rats when they’re trying to lumber someone under the Act.
1981		C. Hope Separate Development 65: Hop in Chief, before the cops lumber you for loitering.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers xxii: [T]hen they - the Gaming Squad - finally ran him to ground and lumbered him.

2. to pawn.

1801		G. Hangar Life, Adventures and Opinions II 60: Those necessary professional accomplishments, such as [...] how to scamp, prigg, floor, [...] mount, lumber, and fence.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 21: Lumber the ticker – to pawn a watch.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835].
1853		Dickens ‘Slang’ in Household Words 24 Sept. 75/2: To pawn is to spout, to pop, to lumber, to blue.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 43/1: Charley [...] returned to Selina’s, to whom he gave his ‘super’ to ‘lumber’.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1890		Sporting Times 22 Mar. 1/5: I’ve ’ad to lumber the old woman’s boots to pay the ’earing fee, and the bally old bounder’s stone deaf!
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 47: Lumber, to pawn or pledge.

3. (UK Und.) to hide oneself.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 251: To retire to any house or private place, for a short time, is called lumbering yourself.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1812].

4. to hide something.

1828

G. Smeeton Doings in London 253: The moment they find that the thief is ‘grabbed’ (apprehended), they run off to the fence, and give him the wink to ‘lumber it in another crib’.

5. to be held subject to legal constraints.

1830

Egan Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1889) 103: Some property, left by a maiden aunt to our hero, which had been ‘lumbered’ for a long time, had recently been unlocked by the Court of Chancery.

6. (UK Und.) to act as a receiver for stolen goods.

1859

Matsell Vocabulum.

7. (S.Afr. prison) to smuggle goods into a prison.

1949

H.C. Bosman Cold Stone Jug (1981) II 13: ‘He says I lumbers. [...] He says I smuggles in tobacco and things,’ Warder van Graan explained.

8. in weak use of sense 1, to bring along.

1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 49: [I]f we’re lucky we managed to lumber a dealer back with us and get him really block-up.
1972		J. McNeill Old Familiar Juice (1973) 104: bulla: Then [they] lumbered ’em back to chase boongs and drink jungle juice.