Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also chantey man, chanty man) a seller and singer of street ballads.

1665		‘R.M.’ Scarronides 72: With all their hair about their eares, They shriek’d and howl’d like frantick chaunters.
1713		W. King York Spy 72: That jolly wide-mouth Chanter.
1749		Smollett (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas II 122: I am a chanter at your service, and amuse myself with clearing my pipes, as you will hear.
1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 40: Chanters, that is, Ballad Singers, will not stick to commit any Roguery that lies in their Way.
1786		J. O’Keeffe Peeping Tom 11: Now, ain’t I an old chaunter?
1795		‘A Peep into a Whiskey-Shop’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 519: Old Cathy the chaunter was drinking with [T]ommy the noted news-boy.
1812–82		B.M. Carew Life and Adventures.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 56: And last, far-famed for fisty prize, / Moll Chauntress view, with bung’d up eyes.
1822		‘The Sprees of Tom, Jerry & Logick’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 123: In a morning at Tattersall’s you may them often see, / ’Mong jockies, grooms, and chaunters, a knowing company.
1838		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 1 Sept. 24/1: Her adventures have been sung in doggerel strains [...] by all the eminent ‘chaunters’ of ballads.
1840		Flash Mirror 19: A cock and hen club every Tuesday and Saturday, where a swell chaunter attends and plays the f—g pony.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 76: ‘Slashing!’ said Bet [...] ‘I think I shall make it all right there myself, ven my old man goes out on a month’s cadge.’ [...] ‘What!’ thought she; ‘make it all right with the chanter? She doss with him? Bust her precious boiler!’.
1857		see sense 2.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 226/2: The chaunter now not only sings, but fiddles.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1892		J. Kelley in Chadwick et al. Ocean Steamships 163: The bos’n and his mate look out for the pulling and hauling, and the dreary singing which the ‘chanty’ man weds to them.
1902		Hull Dly Mail 12 Mar. 4/3: The leather-lunged ‘chanty man’ struck [up] the famous ‘chanty’, ‘We’re all a-going to leve her’.
1906		O.C. Malvery Soul Market 36: The young woman called herself a ‘chanter,’ [...] she had maintained her mother and crippled brother by ‘chanting’.
1915		E. Poole Harbor (1919) 50: ‘Songs? Why sure!’ he answered. ‘It must be the chanties ye mean’ [...] ‘Oh! Chanter!’ ‘No – chanty. An’ the man that sings the verses, he’s called the chanteyman.’.
1936		W.A. Gape Half a Million Tramps 199: The ‘chanter’ in London hardly ever makes personal contact with his benefactors.

2. (Irish) the penis [chanter(-pipe), ‘the pipe of a bagpipe with finger holes, on which the melody is played’ (OED)].

c.1720		‘Original Black Joke. Sent from Dublin’ 🎵 Then hastily came in a Hilland [i.e. highland] man / His Chanter and Pipe both in his hand.
c.1785		‘The New Dhooraling’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 401: His chanter is of the largest size, And for it they’d freely part their eyes.

3. (also chanterer) a crooked horse dealer, also of dogs.

1821		W.T. Moncrieff Tom and Jerry I vi: Grooms, Jockies, and Chaunters, to Tattersal’s bring.
1831		Satirist (London) 11 Dec. 287/2: Jem Young. A horse chanter, a great nail, and a vendor of screws.
1836–7		Dickens Pickwick Papers (1999) 560: He was a horse-chaunter: he’s a leg now.
1844		New Sprees of London 3: I’ll introduce you to the [...] Hokusers, Prigs, Swell-mobmen, Chanters, Actors, and all the flash and slang Mots, Donners, and Cullies that's faking the slums on the cross.
1849		Bell’s Life in Sydney 24 Feb. 1/4: [headline] A Horse Chaunter and a Young Sportsman.
1857		Dickens Little Dorrit (1967) 182: The Plaintiff was a chaunter – meaning, not a singer of anthems, but a seller of horses.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 8/1: ‘Prick the Garter’ [...] is rather a seedy game, and ‘seedy blokes’ in general they are who drive it — ‘romoneys,’ ‘chanters,’ ‘padding-ken keepers’ and low ‘fly-my-kites’.
1867		J. Greenwood Unsentimental Journeys 50: The host of ‘knockers-out’ and ‘chaunters’ and ‘copers,’ hearing of the scheme, set it down as the old dodge with a new cloak.
1884		Daily News 23 Aug. 5/1: It is for the chanter and his attendant bonnet, who officiates as groom, to place the stock [F&H].
1890		W.E. Henley Views and Reviews 137: An apple woman to mystify, a horse-chanter to swindle, a pugilist to study, etc [F&H].
1914		E. Pugh Cockney At Home 194: I’m what they call a chanter, y’know [...] I’m a horse-coper, I am.
1929		J.B. Booth London Town 312: The dog chanterer first of all looked down the columns of the newspapers [...] to see what dogs were advertized for.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks n.p.: Chanter: Man who by puffing or doping a horse helps in the sale of same.