According to an article by Anne Geddes Gilchrist in Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, 1941, the song was by John Percival Graves. The tune evolved from "Red House" in the Dancing Master from 1695, through "Whaur will our goodman lie"/" "Where will bonny Annie lie", and it was apparently Peel's mother's singing of "Bonnie (or Canty) Annie" to her grandson that gave Graves his tune. Gilchrist cites several subsequent publications of the tune in Scots works, and in John Gay's 'Polly'. She also discuses the fragments of songs seemingly connected with the fragmentary song "Bonnie Annie", of which not much is really known. She gave the 'Dancing Master' tune, one from Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion, and a Welsh version of c 1896. The latter, in English, is 'The Red House of Cardiff- a pipe dance.'