Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK Und.) a pleasant, good-natured person.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: A Bob-cull, c. a sweet-humour’d Man to a Whore, and who is very Complaisant.
1725		New Canting Dict.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1828		Lytton Pelham III 295: The cove is a bob cull, and a pal of my own.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford I 72: Be a bob-cull, – drop the bullies, and you shall have the blunt!
1859		‘Scene in a London Flash-Panny’ Matsell Vocabulum 102: Two blowens were clapperclawing each other for a bob-cull, who was seconding both parties, and declaring that the winner should have him.
1861		Vanity Fair (N.Y.) 9 Nov. 216: Take all my bob culls and my bené morts. / I’d hold high revel, sluice my gob alway.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 10: Bob Cull, a good fellow.

1. a house considered worth robbing.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: ’Tis a bob Ken, Brush upon the Sneak, ’tis a good House, go in if you will but Tread softly.
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) 207: A bob, or boman-ken, i.e., a good or well furnished house, full of booty, worth robbing.
1725		New Canting Dict.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
c.1750–1882		B.M. Carew Life and Adventures.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.

2. a house occupied by thieves.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: A Bob Ken, or a Bowman-ken, c [...] also a House that Harbours Rogues and Thievs [sic].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.