mudlarkern.

1818 ‘A. Burton’ Adventures Johnny Newcome i. 26 Slopmen, Mud-larkers and Crimps.

1840 F. Marryat Poor Jack xviii. 123 A mudlarker was a man who had an old boat..furnished with an iron bar full of hooks, which was lowered down by a rope to catch pieces of cordage, oakum, canvass, or other articles, which might fall overboard from the..vessels in the river.

1986 G. Uden Understanding Book-collecting (BNC) 105 Points should never be worshipped to excess, and the unflagging zeal of bibliographical mudlarkers prodding for new ones should be mistrusted or at least treated with caution.

1995 Independent on Sunday 19 Feb. (Review Suppl.) 70/2 Artist Vicky Hawkins, a passionate mudlarker, picks up the kind of ordinary objects no self-respecting treasure-seeker would be seen carrying home.