Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a toady or sycophant, ‘an humble dependent in a great family, who, for a precarious subsistence, and distant hopes of preferment, suffers every kind of indignity’ (Grose 1785).

1672		Wycherley Love in a Wood I i: For every wit has his culley, as every squire has his led captain.
1710		R. Steele Tatler No. 208: Such an easy Companion [...] throws out a little Flattery, or lets a Man silently flatter himself in his Superiority to him. If you take Notice, there is hardly a rich Man in the World, who has not such a led Friend.
1745		H. Walpole 27 Sept. in Letters II (1891) 392: Churchill, whose led-captain he was, and my Lord Harrington, had pushed him up to this misfortune.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Captain, led captain, an humble dependant in a great family, who for a precarious subsistence and distant hopes of preferment suffers every kind of indignity, and is the butt of every species of joke or ill humour [...] The idea of the appellation is taken from a led horse, many of which for magnificence appear in the retinues of great personages, on solemn occasions, such as processions, &c.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1816		W. Scott Antiquary in Waverley (1855) II 225: Petrie [...] recommends, upon his own experience, as tutor in a family of distinction, this attitude to all led-captains, tutors, dependents and bottle-holders of every description.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 170: Led captain a fashionable spunger, a swell who by artifice ingratiates himself into the good graces of the master of the house, and lives at his table.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 44: Led Captain, a fashionable sponger.

2. a pimp.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 673/2: ca. 1670–ca. 1800.