According to John Stokoe in "Songs and Ballads of Northern England (Newcastle on Tyne and London, 1893) - "This melody was picked up from a street singer in Newcastle by Mr Thomas Doubleday, and inserted in a contribution to Blackwood's Magazine in 1821, He presumably was the author of the ballad."

Doubleday is mentioned by Stokoe, in the same volume, as having noted "Captain Bover"