Just because an author has passed out of memory, doesn't mean they didn't exist. What of for example Lucy Broadwood's final comments on 'Poor Murdered Woman' (below)?

I know that I might well have to request further information on a song sung by another today, people very often don't mention who composed it or where it came from. How swiftly would the composer of "Streets of London" be forgotten, if there were no documents or recorded materials?

"Source: Broadwood, L, 1908, English Traditional Songs and Carols, London, Boosey

Notes:
Sung by Mr Forster, 1897.

Lucy Broadwood wrote:

    This fine Dorian tune was noted in 1897 by the Rev. Charles J. Shebbeare at Milford, Surrey, from the singing of a young labourer, with whom it was a favourite song. Mr. Foster wrote out the doggerel words, and had heard that they described a real event. Through the kindness of the Vicar of Leatherhead, the Rev. E. J. Nash (who questioned Mr. Lisney, a parishioner of 87, in Feb. 1908), the ballad has proved to be an accurate account of the finding and burial (Jan. 15th, 1834,) of "a woman-name unknown-found in the common field," as the parish Registers give it. Mr. Lisney, who remembered the events perfectly, said that the author of the ballad was Mr. Fairs, a brickmaker of Leatherhead Common. The Milford labourer's version of names, "Yankee" for "Hankey," and "John Sinn" for " John Simms " of the Royal Oak Inn, are in Journal of the Folk Song Society, Vol. i, p. 186. His obscure line in verse 5 has here been altered to something probably more like the original, for "the poor woman's head had been broken with a stick." The Milford singer gave it: " Some old or some violence came into their heads." This song is only one of many proofs that "ballets" are made by local, untaught bards, and that they are transmitted, and survive, long after the events which they record have ceased to be a reality to the singer."