Bob,

You say the Chandler's Wife is a sailor's song - are you assuming that it's a Ship's Chandler? I've always assumed that it was an ordinary chandler (i.e. candle-maker).

Until gas lighting became common in Victorian times, candles were the main source of lighting, but chandlery was a dying trade by 1900. I would have put the Chandler's Wife as a 19th century urban version of the earlier farm-based Rap-Tap-Tap.

But I have no hard evidence to support this, apart from the "feel" of the songs themselves. Can anybody provide any history on these two?

Wassail! V