I am sure you have constructed a strong argument Jeff but most of us do not doubt the value of what Bert did as a song writer or arranger.

But as most people have said all through the thread, that really isn't the point. We have clearly been deceived, but that is only a part of the problem.

Almost everybody who ever sang a song, be they 19C source singers giving songs to Sharp, 20C source singers like Jeanie Robertson or revival singers like Martin Carthy - they have all sang songs who's authers were known and they say so.

More competent scholars of folk song will put a better argument than I can but I think it goes something like this:

Folk songs are not just old songs. They are songs that have passed through communities and have been fashioned by the lives of people in those communities. A good example is songs about poaching that were written and passed on after the Inclosures Act. People were transported for taking game the songs tell us about the conflict between the people who took the land and the rural working class who lost it.

I think Bert wanted to show that when people moved from the land to the industrial towns in and after the Industrial Revolution they took their rural songs and re-fashioned them as industrial songs.

Thousands of songs about industrial life were wrtten during the 19C most by individual, known or unknown songwriters, Tommy Armstrong is a good exampl writing songs about the mining industry in the North East.

Most of these songs were not re-fashioned by industrial communities. It looks as if Bert re-fashioned some to make it look as if they had. From our perspective it looks a bit of a waste of time but Bert et al were trying very hard to prove the collective creative ability of the industrial working class so he altered more than a few songs to support that idea.

I don't think I have that quite correct so perhaps others can explain what they thought Bert was up to.