Green’s Dictionary of Slang

perch n.1

1. a bed; thus off to perch, going to bed.

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, , [UK]Hotten Sl. Dict.
[UK]Sl. Dict.
[Aus]C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 57: Perch, a bed or lodging.

2. death [ext. of drop off the perch ].

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[UK]Sporting Times 3 Aug. in DSUE (1984).

SE in slang uses

In phrases

drop off the perch (v.) (also fall off..., tip off..., trip off..., pitch over the perch, tip over..., turn someone over...)

to die.

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[UK]R. Hakluyt (trans. of R. de Laudonnière) Notable Hist. Foure Voy. Florida 32v: Some drug that should make men pitch ouer the perche [OED].
[UK]Nashe Unfortunate Traveller in Works V (1883–4) 41: It was inough if a fat man did but trusse his points, to turne him ouer the pearch.
[UK]Dekker Gul’s Horne-Booke 10: Ten Tyburnes cannot turne men ouer ye pearch so fast.
[UK]Urquhart (trans.) Rabelais III Author’s Prologue: Either through negligence, or for want of ordinary sustenance, they both tipt over the perch .
[Ire]Head Eng. Rogue IV Ch. 22 321: I have a sure expedient to make him tip off the perch in a short time.
[UK]J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 58: I had better make my self an Evidence against those who will without Doubt come to be hang’d one Time or another, and save my Life by it, than be tip’d off the Pearch, and leave them to reign in their Wickedness.
[UK]C. Dibdin ‘A Bacchanalian’ in Buck’s Delight 9: With a cup of Brunswick mum, / He tripp’d from off the perch.
[UK]Partridge DSUE (1984) 869/2: late C.18–earlier 20.
[UK]K. Lette Llama Parlour 6: ‘He’s fallen off his perch [...] He’s handed in his dinner plate.’ Still she didn’t get it. ‘He’s dead, damn it!’.
[UK]F. Wheen Karl Marx 246: That redoubtable old buzzard finally fell off her perch.
[UK]Guardian 22 Jun. 🌐 Tory peers will argue tonight that Labour will drag out stage two reform, the details now being drawn up by Lord Wakeham’s royal commission, knowing that elderly peers have a high mortality rate. ‘They’ll just wait for us to drop off the perch,’ one protested last night.
[NZ] McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.