Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a scavenger’s boat, used to pick up the debris of shipping disasters.

1671		Proclamation Charles II 6 Apr. n.p.: Whereas several Dirt-Boats, and Bum-Boats [...] under pretence of Fetching Dirt, and Furnishing necessary Provisions on Board such Ships as are in the River, do commit divers Thefts and Robberies.
1685		By-Laws Trinity House n.p.: No. 6 Dirtboats, otherwise called Bumboats.

2. a boat that brought provisions from land out to larger vessels anchored offshore; thus as a term of affectionate ridicule between sailors; later use, of a boat used by hawkers selling goods to passengers on large ships; thus bum-boating n., selling goods from such a trading boat.

1773		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 51: She has been at Portsmouth in the laudable calling of bum-boating, more politely stiled a green-grocer.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: bum boat. A boat attending ships to retail greens, drams, commonly rowed by a woman; a kind of floating chandler’s shop.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1832		E.C. Wines Two Years and a Half in Navy I 101: A number of bomb-boats [sic] were allowed to come off to supply with fresh grub and soft tack such of the ship’s messes as had the means of purchasing them.
1840		T. Haliburton Clockmaker III 139: He lived as help to a gentleman that kept a bumboat.
1844		W. Kent Guardian 16 Mar. 8/1: The great increase of bum-boats on the river for the sale of beer, liquors, and purl, among the seamen.
1859		G.A. Sala Gaslight and Daylight 107: Bacchus is dismounted here, and lies wallowing in the thwarts of a bumboat.
1867		W.H. Smyth Sailor’s Word-Bk (1991) 143: Bum-Boat. A boat employed to carry provisions, vegetables, and small merchandise for sale to ships.
1870		E. Greey Queen’s Sailors III 97: He hired a bum-boat.
1883		W.C. Russell Sailors’ Lang. 23: Bumboat—A boat that comes off to ships to sell provisions, fruit, &c.
1898		H.H. Lewis A Gunner Aboard the ‘Yankee’ 29: The bumboat did a thriving business.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Aug. Red Page/2: He smuggled himself into a kind of bum-boat – a vessel of small rig that came down the Bay with provisions, and travelled up to Melbourne in the cook’s copper.
1912		R.C. Murphy Logbook for Grace (1948) 17 Sept. 80: Bumboats with lateen sails were already hovering about.
1919		Lima (OH) News 5 June 6/3: Peddlers are ‘bumboats.’.
1923		M. Garahan Stiffs 61: A number of bum-boats came out to us.
1939		R. Butterfield Sat. Eve. Post Treasury (1954) 14 Jan. 396: I’ll [...] ’ail a bumboat and go ashore myself.
1945		D. Bolster Roll On My Twelve 23: As soon as we’d secured to our buoy the bumboat come alongside.
1961		S. Hugill Shanties from the Seven Seas 592: Bumboat. Type of small rowboats found in most tropical ports surrounding deep-water ships at anchor, their owners vociferously shouting their wares.

3. attrib. use of sense 2; thus bumboat-man/-woman, the owner of such a trading boat.

1723		Proceedings Old Bailey 4 Dec. 4/1: The Prisoner was a Bum-boat-Man, and took the Sacks off from the Wharf, and put them into his Boat.
1751		Smollett Peregrine Pickle (1964) 187: Pipes [...] thrust the helm into the master’s hand, saying, ‘Here, you old bum-boat woman, take hold of the tiller, and keep her thus, boy, thus’.
1797		P. Colquhoun Police of the Metropolis 64: The penalty of 40s. adjudged under the Bum-boat Act, to be paid by every person convicted of conveying goods pilfered from vessels.
1801		Proc. Old Bailey 1 July 458/1: I apprehended Watson for stealing sugar, and he was convicted, and paid a fine of 40s. under the bumboat act.
1817		Proc. Old Bailey 16 Apr. 248/1: I am a licenced bumboat-man. I bought the boat of the prisoner for 2l. 5s.
1818		‘A. Burton’ Adventures of Johnny Newcome I 58: We’re going to the Cape, I know, The Bumboat-woman told me so.
1821–6		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 67: A bumboat-woman would have done it [i.e. climb rigging] far better.
1829		D. Jerrold Black-Ey’d Susan I ii: It isn’t to the last port admiral’s widow? Perhaps to big Betsy, the bumboat-woman?
1830		Marryat King’s Own II 112: His mother [...] had arrived to the dignity of bumboat woman.
1832		Mr Mathews’ Comic Annual 22: Sally Grogrum, the old bum-boat woman.
1837		Marryat Snarleyyow I 192: Oh, I don’t know – sort of half-bred, long-shore chap – looks something between a bumbailey and a bumboatman.
1840		E. Howard Jack Ashore I 274: Amazonian Poll and the burly bum-boat woman, stepped ashore.
1846		Proc. Old Bailey 14 Dec. 247: I am a bum-boat man—I came home on the 15th of Sept., at three o'clock.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 67/2: He thought that the bummaree was originally a bum-boat man, who purchased of the wind-bound smacks at Gravesend of the Nore.
1868		Western Gaz. 12 Aug. 5/4: Large numbers of people known as ‘bum-boat’ men and women go from Portsmouth in wherries to supply the crews.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Jan. 9/3: The bills said Miss Lambert was to be the gipsy, but it was some time before we could recognise the rather obstreperous bum-boat woman of ‘Pinafore’ in the vagrant of the Troubadour.
1885		Salt Lake Eve. Democrat (UT) 22 May 1/5: The packet ships used to ride at anchor [...] and the bumboats used to shoot out three timesa day [...] taking fruit and fresh bread.
1887		W.S. Gilbert ‘The Bumboat Woman’s Story’ Fifty ‘Bab’ Ballads 153: A bumboat woman was I, and I faithfully served the ships.
1888		Essex Standard 21 Apr. 7/1: I was told by Johnny, the bum-boat man at Malta, that [etc.].
1893		Graphic (London) 20 May 15: [pic. caption] From the Old World to the New, the Bumboat women come on board at Queenstown.
1900		Manchester Times 4 May 13/3: Bum-boat women are many, and various.
1905		Proc. Old Bailey 9 Jan. 400: I had seen Mike sell his box and clothes to the bumboat-men.
1906		Proc. Old Bailey 8 Jan. 505: I remember the stores being landed at St. Helena and some bumboat women coming on board with curios.
1925		Gloucester Citizen 29 Jan. 5/3: The death has occurred in Portsmouth, at the age of 86, of Mrs Mary Jane Daniell, the last of the bumboat women.
1943		M. Harrison Reported Safe Arrival 107: One had only to see this filthy tide to realize that to eat the bum-boat-men’s fruit [...] was to walk in the valley of the shadow of death.
1951		N. Algren Chicago: City On the Make 25: The bumboat pirate called Black Jack Yattaw.
1973		D. Walcott ‘Another Life’ Coll. Poems (1986) 162: The seven-foot-high bum-boatman.
1974		(con. 1945) E. Thompson Tattoo (1977) 328: Some sort of murky grouper, a gnarled-looking scavenger for which the citizens of the bumboat colony avidly fished.

4. (Aus.) an illegal cargo of alcohol.

1951

E. Hill Territory 443: Bumboat: An illicit load of grog by truck or packhorse.