what a tempest in a teapot we have here... 175 years later on a point that the original shanty singers didn't care a hoot about. Whall admitted he had only hearsay and has been castigated. But not by his contemporaries. A certain "geordie" seaman was a contemporary, born the same year in Dunbar, thought very highly of Whall's book and called it very authoritative in his 1921 introduction to RR Terry's Shanty Book I... Sir Walter Runciman, Terry's uncle.

both Shanty Books I and II can be downloaded from the Eastman School of Music's Sibley's online library website
https://urresearch.rochester.edu/institutionalPublicationPublicView.action?institutionalItemId=24944&versionNumber=1

and background on Sir Walter below.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Runciman,_1st_Baron_Runciman

Runciman wrote a few books about his life at sea that I highly recommend... the ship and crews, how shanties became ingrained into their lives and there hardships that they endured.