Like Paddy Doyle, this tune was used for bunting a sail.
Nothing more seems known about Johnny Boker than his name.
According to Joanna Colcord in Roll and Go, the words of a popular American ballad "Aunt Jemima's Plaster" were sometimes adopted to the tune:
Last time I met my wife, she wasn't very civil;
So I stuck a plaster on her back and sent her to the devil.
Sheepskin, pitch and beeswax, they make a bully plaster;
The more she tries to get it off, it only sticks the faster!