Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a thief, usu. a woman, who waylays young children and strips them of their clothes, which she then sells.

a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: skinners kidnappers, or sett of abandoned fellows who steal children, or intrap unwary men to inlist for soldiers.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1856		H. Mayhew Great World of London I 46: ‘Skinners,’ or women and boys who strip children of their clothes.
1861		H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor IV 25: ‘Skinners,’ or those women who entice children and sailors to go with them and then strip them of their clothes.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 8: Skinners - Women who entice sailors and children and then strip them.
1890		Atlantic Monthly lxvi 511: There were two sets of these scapegraces – the ‘Cow-boys,’ or cattle thieves, and the skinners, who took everything they could find [F&H].

2. (UK Und.) a brothel prostitute who drugs a client's drink, then strips them, robs them and turns them into the street.

1853		Greenock Advertiser 28 June 4/2: ‘Skinners’ are a particularly Liverpudlian race of vagabonds [who] live in houses of bad erpute [...] into which they inveigle seafaring men, drug their liquor, rob them, strip them, and turn them into the street.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 8: see sense 1.