This song originates from Northeast England. It may be considered a Tyneside song and it is included in Northumbrian Minstrelsy (1882) by J. Collingwood Bruce and John Stokoe as well as Stokoe's Songs and Ballads of Northern England (1893) but the air may be even older. It also appears in Roy Palmer's The Valiant Sailor (1973, sea songs and ballads and prose passages illustrating life on the lower deck in Nelson's Navy).

Frankie Armstrong sings the song on the album accompanying Palmer's book, which is also called The Valiant Sailor.