> and is the possible source of the Mike Waterson version

So it says at any rate in the sleeve notes quoted at https://mainlynorfolk.info/peter.bellamy/songs/thecruelshipscarpenter.html.

I guess "Fair ones are shining on foreign earth and town" is a rather splendid mondegreen for the usual "In fair Worcester city and in Worcestershire" (maybe via something like "In fair Worcestershire, in fair Worcester town"?), and once the first line had come to end in "town", "Miss Brown" was introduced to make the next line rhyme. I notice the "town... Miss Brown" rhyme is also in Mrs Kenny's Nova Scotia text that you posted earlier.

I wonder, have the "early one morning" bits in stanzas 2 and 6 been borrowed from "All Jolly Fellows that Follow the Plough"? (I don't mean just by Paddy McCluskey -- they're in the broadside text too.) Or are they just a commonplace? I can't think of other examples.