Stan Hugill's source is his "friend Mr. K. Suyk" who himself received it from "Captain Spaandarman, over eighty years of age". The captain said:
The first steamer of the Nederlands Steam Navigation Company (now the Holland-America line) was rigged as a brig, with two square-rigged masts. She still had an old-fashioned man-handled capstan. The ship lay in the roads at Hellevoetsluis, about to make her first passage to America. Her ex-sailing-ship hands raised the anchor to this shanty. Later, I joined the bark Senior, aboard which sailed some members of the Dutch steamer already mentioned, and when this sailing ship was at anchor in False Bay, near the Cape of Good Hope, we signaled for a tug to take us to Cape Town.
We had sixty fathoms of chain out and when we came to weigh anchor, the Iron Man was the shanty we raised.
Baggerman, mentioned in this shanty, was a public house master who had several daughters. Stan Hugill explains that in the old days, before the Canal (the Nieuwe Waterweg system) was cut through, ships would lie in the roads at Hellevoetsluis (a small coastal city west of Rotterdam) instead of going up to Rotterdam. The crimps would bring crews out in small boats from the boarding houses of Rotterdam's Schedamschedyk.
Hugill explicitly mentions that this song has been bowdlerized. As in most of Hugill's translations, he was able to give away slightly more in the original language.
In Hellevoetsluis daar staat een huis,
Ch: Hoera die ijzere man!
Daar zijn de damesvan Baggerman thuis,
Ch: Hoera die ijzere man!
Dan zingen wij vrolyk fal-de-ral-de-ra, wie gaat er mets on mee?
Wij varan naar Amerika, het schip ligt op de ree,
Wij varen naar Amerika, het schip ligt op de ree!
En in dat huis daar staat een stok,
Daar krijgen de dames mee op hun kop.
Een juffrouw die naar de kerk wou gaan,
Die liet haar hoofd met goud beslaan.
Aan ieder haar had zij een bel,
Het was gelijk een klokkespel.
En toen zij dan de kerk in gang,
Toen gingen die bellen van ring ting ting.
De Dominee die op zijn preekstoel zat,
Die dacht U wee wat een wijf is dat.
De koster die dit werk bezag,
Die was van streek de hele dag.
De dienstmeid die dit werk bekeek,
Die was jaloers de hele week.
En die dit lied al heeft gedicht,
Die kan er rijmen zonder licht.
At Hellevoetsluis there stands a house,
Ch: Hurrah the Iron Man!
There the Baggerman damsels, they are at home.
Ch: Hurrah the Iron Man!
Then we'll sing merrily - falderal-dera, who's coming with us now?
We are sailing for America, the ship lies in the roads.
We are sailing for America, the ship lies in the roads!
And in that house there is a stick,
With it the girls on their heads are hit.
One girl to church; oh, she wished to go,
She had her head all set with gold.
And on each hair she put a bell,
The noise was like a carillon.
And when she entered into church,
The bells all ringing, up the aisle she lurched.
The vicar in his pulpit there,
To himself he thought, what a damsel fair.
The verger looked at this strange sight,
He felt upset all day and night.
The serving maid who saw her there,
Was jealous of her golden hair.
And he who wrote these verses fine,
In the dark can make up any rhyme.