Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to expect an inheritance, to hope to succeed to someone else’s job.

1656		R. Fletcher ‘To my Honoured Friend’ Epigrams and Poems 256: And Tis a general shrift, that most men use, But yet tis tedious waiting dead mens shoes.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew.
1758		A. Murphy Upholsterer I ii: I grant ye, Ma’am, you have very good pretensions; but then it’s waiting for dead Men’s Shoes.
1764		in P. Fitzgerald Life and Times of John Wilkes (1888) I 244: As they have no other relation but Miss Wilkes, I therefore suppose they will leave everything to her, independent of me. Yet this is, after all, waiting for dead men’s shoes.
1832		Launceston Advertiser (Tas.) 21 Aug. 272/3: ‘Oh! I see: - a managed matter; - a candidate for dead men’s shoes, eh! Ah! you sly dog!’ .
1845		C.M. Kirkland Western Clearings 150: No prospect of an inheritance had prevented their mother from accommodating her ideas to her present condition. This ‘waiting for dead men’s shoes’ is proverbially enervating to the character.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 27 Sept. 4/4: In spite of their drinking, it was no joke waiting for the ‘dead men’s shoes’ of these Welsh squires.
1852		People’s Advocate (Sydney) 15 May 12/1: [D]uring which period I was placed in the extremely unpleasant position of what is called ‘waiting for dead men’s shoes’.
1875		Wkly Times (Melbourne) 18 Dec. 11/2: Waiting for dead men’s shoes is, in most cases, a bootless affair.
1876		M.E. Braddon Dead Men’s Shoes II 101: ‘Rather an ignoble position that,’ says Dick, – ‘waiting for dead men’s shoes.’.
1891		Standard (Port Melbourne) 11 July 3/3: ‘Men, behind old employes, should receive their increments without waiting for dead men’s shoes, or for men being forced to retire’.
1895		Pall Mall Gaz. 5 Aug. 2/1: ‘Queer way of waiting to step into dead men’s shoes,’ remarked Guy’s man.
1902		Pall Mall Gazette 26 July 2/3: Waiting for dead men’s shoes is a tedious business, especially when the shoes in question are a pair of Turkish slippers [F&H].
1919		Eve. Teleg. 13 Feb. 1/4: [headline] Waiting on Dead men’s — Houses!
1924		Nottingham Eve. Post 27 May 5/2: There is a proverb about waiting for dead men’s shoes [...] If the other two parties are waiting for our shoes, they will have to wait a very long time.
1949		Gloucs. Echo 25 Aug. 1/7: A 74 Years-Old woman said [...] she knew her neophew wanted her house, and told him, ’If you wait for dead men’s shoes you wait a long time’.