Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a hunch-backed or badly crippled man; thus also addressed as His Honour.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Lord a very coorked [sic] deformed, or ill-shapen Person.
1721		Penkethman’s Jests 81: Among their Musick, they had an Hump-back’d Fiddler, whom they call’d His Honour.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Lord [...] It is said in the British Apollo, that the title of lord as first given to deformed persons, in the reign of Richard III, from several persons labouring under that misfortune, being created peers by him.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1785].
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1841		‘Nothing Like Pride About Me’ Dublin Comic Songster 256: I vonce doffed my holiday togs, [...] And had a coat fronted with frogs, / A vestcoat and brichis by Stultz; / Vhile giving Lord Hoppy a call.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn).
1864		Athenaeum 29 Oct. No. 1931: On the Greek origin of lord, as applied to those who are vulgarly called ‘hunch-backs,’ Mr. Hotten is silent [F&H].
1879		London Standard 6 Dec. 2/1: She invariably wound up at night with a mad fighting fit during which ‘my lord’ — vulgar slang for hunchback — was always thrashed.
1997		Share Slanguage.