Reference: David Rorie MD: The Lum hat wantin' the croon and other poems (Edinburgh and London, Moray Press, 1935. In the preface Rorie says "... I wrote the song one fine summer night nearly forty-five years ago in an English manufacturing town, ... " He says he made the tune himself. He is not specific about its first publication but refers to it having been sung during the Boer war and having been published in the British Students' Song Book." He gives eight stanzas.