After Mary died in 1820, Candlish senior moved the family to Sunderland where he found work at Ayres Quay bottleworks, managed by his brother, Robert.

Candlish was educated at local Dissenter schools and then at an academy in North Shields before returning to Sunderland, aged eleven, to work in the bottleworks.

Aged fourteen, his uncle secured him an apprenticeship as a draper and he began to study the French language and joined a debating society.

Candlish contested for one of Sunderland's two parliamentary seats at the 1865 general election but was defeated by Henry Fenwick and James Hartley.

Candlish undertook a parliamentary visit to India in 1870 (where he, incidentally, was presented with a bottle of beer manufactured by his own company), a trip which was blamed for the subsequent breakdown of his health.