Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the youngest member, i.e. of a regiment, a club etc.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Boots, the youngest officer in a regimental mess, whose duty it is to skink, that is, to stir the fire, snuff the candles, and ring the bell.
1806		Sir R. Wilson Life (1862) I. ii. 60: Although I was naturally cheerful and good-tempered [...] My chief resistance to discipline was at mess where I could not brook the duties of Boots .

2. (also jackboots) the servant assigned to the cleaning of boots and other odd jobs.

1784		J. O’Keeffe Fontainebleau III i: Your honour will remember the waiters? [...] Your honour won’t forget Jack Boots?
1816		W.T. Moncrieff All at Coventry I i: Landlord! Waiter! Boots! oddsfish / You Job himself would vex.
1824		R.B. Peake Americans Abroad I ii: Ostler, post-boy, boots, under-waiter.
1824		History of Gaming Houses & Gamesters 10: A simple knight stood in some such relation to [...] the Duke of Y— as the jack-boots of an Inn would to a country squire.
1838		R. Barham ‘The Hand of Glory’ in Bentley’s Misc. Mar. 303: And the Boots and the Chambermaids run in and stare.
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 3 Jan. 1/5: He but a short time back filled the important office of boots in one of the Newcastle inns,.
1847		Thackeray Punch’s Prize Novelists: Crinoline in Burlesques (1903) 214: ‘Mind and wake me early,’ he said to Boots.
1857		T. Hughes Tom Brown’s School-Days (1896) 60: ‘Now, sir, time to get up, if you please.’ [...] So spake the Boots of the Peacock Inn, Islington.
1869		W. Bradwood O.V.H. I 45: Jemmy [...] left orders with the yawning ‘boots’ to see him called at ten in the morning.
1888		R. Barnett Police Sergeant C 21 58: I’m second boots, I am.
1897		‘Mark Twain’ Tom Sawyer, Detective 20: They take that chance to bribe somebody to keep watch on me – porter or boots or somebody.
1909		Sun. Times (Perth) 28 Feb. 4s/8: The boots at the Dook of York in Murray-street woke me up early.
1916		G. Jennings The Bathroom Door (1917) 22: ‘Is it the manager?’ ‘No, it’s the boots.’.
1920		B. Cronin Timber Wolves 36: He slept like a log until roused by the hotel ‘boots’ in the early hours.
1930		(con. 1915) ‘W.W. Windstaff’ ‘A Flier’s War’ in Longstreet Canvas Falcons (1970) 270: I slept till the boy called Boots came to knock on the door with the morning paper.

3. (US) a shoeshiner.

1991

W.T. Vollmann Whores for Gloria 118: Ain’t that right, boots?