A tosher is someone who scavenges in the sewers, a sewer-hunter, especially in London during the Victorian era.
The word tosher was also used to describe the thieves who stripped valuable copper from the hulls of ships moored along the Thames.
A tosher in Victorian London is the profession of the title character in Dodger, a 2012 novel by Terry Pratchett.
[3] The protagonist of Nick Harkaway’s 2012 novel Angelmaker describes the London sewers and backstreets as “Tosher’s Beat”.
The character Murky John is a Tosher in Year of the Rabbit Series 1 Episode 2.