No problem with that everyone's been very helpful. I did find a few Little Billy Barlow references on-line but I haven't been able to make any connections. There is a little book called "The Songs of Billy Barlow" by Hugh Anderson published in 1956. Anderson gives some background but he did not have the advantage of the internet and there are some gaps. He does, however cover the Patterson version quite well. It was from him that I found the detailed account of "Billy Barlow in Australia" that is covered in the introduction to the book "Jemmy Green in Australia." ed. Colin Roderick. I would recomend to anyone interested in "Billy Barlow in Australia" -- the song -- that they read this introduction. Roderick gives the background of the first performance of the song and makes a studied guess that it was written by Griffin. This can be confirmed by the reference in the book "Coppin the Great" by Alec Bagot - to a letter written by Coppin where he states that Griffin wrote the song. Roderick did not have access to the Coppin letter at the time of his writing. I don't mean to complicate things further but Coppin wrote new Billy Barlow songs all his life and he lived into his 80s. Sam Cowell also wrote them all the time but of course he died young. The wonder is that there are not more Billy Barlow songs still around!