You're so right, Lighter. Gah! I confused myself with my own notes -- Of course 'SHEILA' is 1921 (1877 is the voyage described)! Things make a bit more sense now.

So if "Stand To Your Ground" was in Whall's first (1910) edition, then we can presume his version is likely authentic or independent. He does say also that he had previously published some (?) of the chanties in journal articles. I haven't looked for those yet.

And so it seems that it was Angel who (probably) copied from Whall or some yet unidentified derivation of that. The "Canaan" bit also bothered me. It makes total sense that it would have been Canaan originally but that Angel would change it to "England." The other way around makes little sense. I wonder why Angel (if he was the first) decided to turn one of the verses into a grand chorus. It makes one wonder if he really understood that it was a halyard chanty. (A halyard chanty could conceivably have a grand chorus, but it is weird.)

What is actually great about this --with bearing on my interest in establishing a timeline of chanty development-- is that it exposes Angel's work as an unreliable gauge of what chanties were around c.1877. Closer analysis may suggest that Angel culled many of Whall's chanties, which he popped willy nilly into his text.

I didnt realize/remember this was in Harlow, too. (I moved to California a few months back, with only a duffle bag of minimal possessions, and I don't have easy access to my books!) Is it in his original/first part, about the 1875 voyage, or is it in that end, kitchen-sink section? In any case, I believe the earliest part of Harlow first appeared in 1928...then in the 40s...then more widely in 1962. Though I tend to doubt that Harlow had much or any influence on Revival performances, it can help assess the historical form of the song.

Lighter brings up another intriguing/confusing (!) issue with Lubbock's version. 1909/10 is so close to Whall's date of publication, and it is not clear if the authors would have had access to each other's work. The verses have the same content, though completely different wording. What are the chances that this chanty was consistently sung to such verses? I'd like to imagine that independent versions would vary *more*. Perhaps not.