Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a generous person, someone who treats their companions.

1517		Skelton Elynour Rummynge line 366: Lo, here is an olde typpet, And ye wyll gyve me a syppet Of your stale ale.
1849		Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Jan. 3/5: Jacques [...] being a regular Tippet and a lad of spirit.
1860		R. Nicholson Rogue’s Progress (1966) 146: There were at least three sponges to one tippet, in fact it might have been truly called the city of the sponges [Ibid.] 149: There never existed a greater sponge, in this way, than the late lord Glentworth [...] The unsuspecting purveyors or tippets all of them suffered severely by his lordship’s disinterested patronage.