Steve. This is based on something I was doing elsewhere.

1904 JFFS Kidson and? Rippleton Garden Version. Conjectures that air 'The Unfortunate Rake' might have been original tune. Cites sources for that tune.

1909 PW Joyce. Quotes My Jewel My Joy Fragment. Does not link it to TUR

1911 Philips Barry 1911 and 1912. Harvard Educated folklorist. Journal of American Folklore.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/534460 and
http://www.jstor.org/stable/534824>
In 1911 discusses Cowboy's Lament, traces this back to song he inexplicably calls TUR, no refs. Asserts incorrectly that Joyce 'traces' the song in Ireland. Joyce makes no such link.
1912 more or less repeats same material. Confusingly he quotes a such type ending, stating this is the earliest known form. Makes some other mistakes eg the soldier is dying IN hospital.

1913 English Folk Song Society journal. Young girl cut down in her prime. No mention of TUR. Several tunes provided by Sharp who says they are 'of the Henry Martin type'. (NB A L Loyd had read all the EFFS articles.

1918 Sharp and Karpeles visit the Appalachians. NB Book with the St James Hospital song not published until the 30s, as Vol 2, though Sharp left photostats of his notes at Harvard.

1920s W Roy Mackenzie (another Harvard educated collector) collects a St James Hospital version in Novia Scotia. I did have the reference for this but have lost it.   Karpeles who edited the 2nd vol of Appalachian songs was aware of this version. I think that 2nd vol might have been where I got the ref, but it was inter library loan and I sent it back. Ref lost due to computer crash/failure to sensibly back stuff up on external hard disc.

1925 Moore and Baxter's Gambler's Blues published in Arkansas by Baxter. Joe's bar-room

1927 The American Song bag. St Joe's bar-room. St Joe's Infirmary.

1927 Fess Williams' Gambler's Blues.

1928 Louis Armstrong's 1928 St James Infirmary. Massive international hit.

1932 2nd volume of Sharp's Appalachian songs published, with the Dewey St James Hospital version in it.


1933 Lomax collects a song ? possibly including St James Hospital words from Ironhead in prison.

1937 Bath Hospital version published in EFDS society. Oddly, since those words had never been found in England, they entitled the piece St James Hospital.   
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4521114>

1947 A L Lloyd's first article on St James Infirmary Blues published. His refs include PW Joyce (as above), the 1904 Kidson article, Cecil Sharp in the Appalachians Vol 2, John and Alan Lomax's Cowboy Songs (he provides a 'condensed' version of Cowboy's Lament). My copy of this has a page missing, just after he cites Mackenzie and Mrs Ellen Bigney of Pictu. This he may have got via Karpeles' edition of Appalachians Vol 2. She put notes in it on some songs. But this is the missing page, so I don't have his reference. Says song TUL also known as TUR. No example given.