Charles R. Thatcher, while in New Zealand, wrote "The Escaped Prisoners" to the tune of "Darling Nelly Gray." It opened "In the battered hulk that's anchored off the Waitemata shore, The Maoris used to while the time away." The same incident is also the subject of "Fall of Rangiriri," in Bailey and Roth's Shanties by the Way.

There are references to old hulks in "The Old Hulk" (in Huntington's Songs the Whalemen Sang) and Charles Dibdin's "Tom Bowling," but they aren't specifically prison hulks.

Most bushranger and transportee songs don't refer specifically to prison hulks, but the men involved often spent time there. John Mitchell of "John Mitchel" (which is pretty well known) spent time on a prison hulk. So did Richard Burgess of Neil Colquhoun's "Murderer's Rock." Hugh Anderson cited a broadside, "A New Flash Song, Made on the Noted George Barrington"; Barrington spent time on a hulk. I think Jack Donahoe spent time on a hulk, but I don't have the reference to hand.