Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK Und.) the landlord of a thieves’ meeting-place.

a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: cove, lumber that keeps a house for the reception of thieves only.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1821		Flash Dict.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.

the flat from which a prostitute works .

1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 204: Done up posh like a top-tart’s lumber room.
1959		F. Norman Fings II i: I’ll get you a nice little lumber gaff in Shepherd’s Market.
1969		F. Norman in Fashion July in Norman’s London (1969) 255: The girls have gone off the streets and now hang out of top-floor windows yelling at clients to mount the dark staircase to their ‘lumber gaffs’.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 161: The high-spirited harlots invited me back to their lumber gaff for a nightcap.

1. a drinking tavern frequented by criminals.

1702		T. Brown Letters from the Dead to the Living in Works (1760) II 187: Jumbling the gods about, as if they were so many tapsters in a lumber-house.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 395: Happening one Night into a Lumber House, not far from Billingsgate [...] he and his Comrades were sat down at a Table, with a Tankard of Beer.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict. n.p.: Lumber-ken a house kept for the reception of rogues, swindlers, cheats, and thieves of all sorts.

2. a house to which thieves bring stolen property after committing a crime.

1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Lumber House. A house appropriated by thieves for the reception of their stolen property.

a prison.

1852

Kendal Mercury 3 Apr. 6/2: Dick and Bill [...] who never sullied their fingers with a day’s labour [...] unless ’twere a month’s involuntary toil in some lumber ken (jail).

1. (orig. Aus., also in Lombard Street) jailed, in prison.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 251: A man apprehended and sent to gaol is said to be lumbered, to be in lumber, or to be in Lombard-Street.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1963		J. Prescot Case for Hearing viii. 125: My poor old dad was in and out of lumber all his life [OED].

2. (UK Und.) in pawn.

1865

Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 41/2: Somehow Tim’s ‘togs’ looked as fresh as if they hadn’t been ‘in lumber’.

3. in trouble, often extended to in dead lumber.

1965		G. Melly Owning Up (1974) 111: This was a real lumber [...] Luckily most of the time we were unconscious from lack of sleep.
1981		J. Sullivan ‘The Second Time Around’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] You want to put yourself in lumber for the rest of your life that’s entirely up to you. I’m not saying nothing!
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 706: since ca. 1935.
1998		K. Sampson Awaydays 33: He’s chocker with them. Got us into all sorts of lumber.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 22: One of them’s in a bit of lumber right now. He half took liberties with a young girl.