(a) Learnt from F. R. Woods?

Colquhoun said that he collected the song (words and tune) from a certain F. R. Woods. There is a Francis Reaston Woods, who was born in 1889, worked at Rotomanu, Westland, in 1917, was manufacturing dolls prams in Chch in 1923,and who died in Auckland in 1959. But mysteriously, Colquhoun did not include such a good song in the 1967 1st edition of his cyclostyled book New Zealand Folk Songs.

(b) ... or found in in a book on NZ sailors?

Tommy Wood was singing it in Auckland folk clubs in the 1960s and Mike Harding later spoke to him about it. He told Mike...

"I came across the poem in a book on NZ sailors. Unfortunately I have not got the book anymore. All I can remember was stories connected to whaling, exploring NZ and immigration ships, containing personal letters of life on board these ships, including poems... black and white sketches of ships, sailors etc. The Wellerman was an actual poem in the book but not quite in rhyme so I had to adjust some of the words."

This would imply that Tommy Wood was claiming to be the composer of the tune. But in his 1972 songbook, Colquhoun claimed the composer of the tune was unknown. I have searched for this mysterious book in archive.org/details/books, in NZETC and in Google Books, and specialist librarians have looked in the old books section of the NZ National Library, but without success. Was this a story Mr Wood concocted?

(c) The Words of the first five verses.

There are dozens of English and Appalachian variants of the early 17th century Golden Trinity, about Sir Walter Raleigh. This is the oldest.

    Sir Walter Rawleigh has built a ship, in the Neather-lands
      And it is called The Sweet Trinity,
       And was taken by the false gallaly, Sailing in the Low-lands.
   
      Is there never a seaman bold in the Neather-lands
      That will go take this false gallaly,
      And to redeem The Sweet Trinity? Sailing in the Low-lands . . .

Later, more concisely
   
       ‘I have a ship in the North Countrie,
       And she goes by the name of the The Golden Vanity;
       I’m afraid she will be taken by some Turkish gallee,
       As she sails on the Low Lands Low.’      

And this Appalachian variant was presumably sung by Yankee whalers.

Well, there once was a ship on the northern sea
and the name of the ship was the 'Green Willow Tree'
And we sailed in the lowlands, lies so low
We sailed in the lowland O

She wasn't on the sea more than a week or three
When she was overtaken by the Turkish Revillie
And we sailed in the lowlands, lies so low
We sailed in the lowland O

Hyatt Verrill's book about USA whalers tells us that
"Of all amusements or recreations, other than shore-leave, the whalers looked forward with the greatest anticipation to visit another ship and whenever two vessels met at sea. The forecastles and cabins rang with laughter, the decks resounded to the shuffle and patter of dancing feet and lusty lungs roared forth the whalemen's songs. Many of these songs of the whalemen were very descriptive of their lives, their experiences and their hardships. . ."

Many whaling ships were sunk and hundreds of whaleboats were smashed to smithereens by whales. Mocha Dick was an white bull sperm whale, "of prodigious size and strength and white that was first attacked by whale boats sometime before 1810 near Mocha Island off the coast of Chile. His unusual white appearance, and ability to survive about a hundred whalers' attacks quickly made him famous.

He was quite docile, but once attacked he retaliated with ferocity and cunning, sinking 20 whaling ships and dozens of whaleboats. He would sound and then breach so aggressively that his entire body would sometimes come completely out of the water. The case of the Nantucket whaler Essex is often quoted.

"He was seen at a distance of several hundred yards coming full speed for the ship. Diving, he rose again to the surface about a ship's length away, and then surged forward on the surface striking the vessel just forward of the fore chains. Circling, he again bore down upon the Essex. This time his head fairly stove the bows in, and the crew had barely time to provision and launch the boats. Twelve of the crew lost their lives, five only were rescued."
(The Nautical Magazine 1908)


The Essex was 80ft long and weighed 240 tons; Mocha Dick was 70ft long and weighed about 90 tons.

A forecastle singer had no doubt heard the stories about Mocha Dick and he changed the attack of Golden Vanity by Barbary pirates to an attack of a whaling ship by Mocha Dick,

So I am guessing that Colquhoun may have heard, or Wood found, something like this.

There was a ship that put to sea,
The name of the ship was the William O'T
The winds blew up, her bow dipped down,
O blow, my bully boys, blow; ho, ho,
O blow, my bully boys, blow;

She had not been two weeks from shore
When down on her a white whale bore.
The captain called all hands and swore
He'd take that whale in tow: ho, ho,
He'd take that whale in tow.

Before the boat had hit the water
The whale's tail came up and caught her.
All hands to the side, harpooned and fought her
When he dived down below ho, ho.

No line was cut, no whale was freed;
The Captain's mind was not of greed,
But he belonged to the whaleman's creed;
When she took the ship in tow ho, ho.
He took the ship in tow.

For forty days, or even more,
The line went slack, then tight once more.
All boats were lost (there was only four)
But still the whale did go, ho, ho,
But still the whale did go


(d) The words of the last verse

The terms "Wellers' man," "Wellerman" and "tonguing", were not authentic 19th century whaling terms. So the 6th verse and chorus were presumably added by Colquhoun and/or Woods give it a New Zealand context.

As far as I've heard, the fight's still on;
The line's not cut and the whale's not gone.
The Wellers' man makes his regular call
To encourage the Captain, crew, and all.

This is a nonsense verse because in the days before telegraph operators transmitting morse code on ships, a provisioning ship could not regularly find a whaler at any random place in 20,000 square miles of open seas, and cases of stores cannot be exchanged between ships on the rough seas of the Southern Ocean, with one ship attached to an unstoppable whale.

The Wellers' ships only exchanged stores and whale-oil in sheltered New Zealand harbours.

(e) The words of the chorus

       One day when the 'tonguing' is done
       We'll take our leave and go.

    A 19th century chantyman would not have composed this line. Crews on US whaling ships did the 'flensing' of the whale's skin, and boiling-down of the blubber (over an open fire on a wooden ship loaded with wooden barrels containing several hundred tons of inflammable oil !!!!!) The strips of skin with fatty layer beneath that were flensed off the whale's carcass were called 'blankets.'

The more cautious British whalers took their blankets of blubber to the shore and did their boiling-down there. The shore-based scavengers who came after the whalers had gone and who fought the rats for the scraps of blubber and muscle fat the whalers had left behind, including the thin layer of fat on the whale's tongue, were called 'tonguers'.

MY CONCLUSION
1630s - Sir Walter Raleigh "Sailing in the Lowlands on the Sweet Trinity" is attacked by a "false gallaly," or Barbary coast pirate ship. Then the Sweet Trinity becomes Sweet Kermadee, then the Golden Vanity.

1940s On a USA whaling ship, the False gallaly/French galley/Turkish revilee attacking the ship becomes Mocha Dick, a 'white/right whale.'

1967 - Tommy Wood either finds some 'right whale' lyrics in an old whaling book, or Neil Colquhoun collects them, and Wood sings them in Auckland folk clubs.

1968 - Neil Colquhoum composes a Wellerman last verse and chorus for Wood's 'right whale' verses.

1969 - Wellerman is recorded for the NZBC, and the program is later played in England.

1971 - "The Lightning Tree," a bouncy song of survival after a mortal attack, and using the tunes for both the verses and chorus of Wellerman, becomes popular in England.

1972 - writing in his Song of a Young Nation songbook, Colquhoun says he collected Wellerman from the singing of Frank R. Woods. But Woods died in the 1950s and no NZ folkie sang the song until the late 1960s.

My conclusion is that in about 1958 Frank Woods taught Colquhoun a shorter version based on the Mocha Dick attacks near Peru, then in the mid 1960s Tommy Wood added a Wellers' man shore whalers' chorus to make it a faux traditional white settlers' song for white New Zealanders.

Here is my full webpage of research on Collquhoun's efforts.
https://www.folksong.org.nz/colquhouns_shanties/index.html