Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to go rag-picking or scavenging; thus totting n.

1866		Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 121: ‘Are you goin’ a-tottin’, Smiffield?’ ‘No,’ [...] ‘Then what caper are you up to?’.
1873		Sl. Dict. 327: Totting bone-picking, either peripatetically or at the dust-heaps. ‘tot’ is a bone, but chiffoniers and cinder-hunters generally are called tot-pickers nowadays. totting also has its votaries on the banks of the Thames, where all kinds of flotsam and jetsam, from coals to carrion, are known as tots.
1937		J. Curtis There Ain’t No Justice 174: It would do him a world of good to have a barrow for a bit, particularly if he handled his own buying up at the Garden, or did a bit of totting.
1976		(ref. to 1930s) R. Barnes Coronation Cups and Jam Jars 83: My George ain’t had a very good week of totting.
1988		Galton & Simpson Best of Steptoe and Son 5: We started writing. First rag and bone man. Second rag and bone man. In the yard. Arguing about the day’s totting.
1989		(con. 1950s–60s) in G. Tremlett Little Legs 10: Totting . . . you go out with the pony and cart [...] saying, ‘Any old iron, any old iron?’ and you pick up anything that’s going, especially rags.
2013		Spitalfields Life 12 Feb. 🌐 His brothers ran a second hand shop down the Bethnal Green Rd and a stall in Cheshire St on Sunday. They used to do house clearance, it was called totting.