I already know it was probably sung by Alfred Cruikshank who is listed in the Kilgariff book. He was Grand Master of Chelsea Lodge in 1941. He would have done most of his singing in Music Halls before WWII, and have trod the boards before WWI at a guess.

The aim is to find an author for the song and maybe the words though I have a video of a 100 year old WWI vet singing it - or his version.

There are two possibilities one of which was Welsh with lyrics in Cymraeg, dates 1914 and another unspecified but the asking price to find a dead end is too high. A world-wide sheet music search on the net has produced nothing.

On the suggestion of "the Walrus" I tried the EMI site re the Francis Day & Hunter archive but it seems to tell me little and I have to persever with that but maybe there is a short-cut here.