According to Dave Moran on the goldilox website; http://www.goldilox.co.uk/engfolk/frames/nicjones4.htm

"Nic [Jones] and I and mandolin/guitar player Nigel Patterson made up the Halliard. We were looking to develop some new music and we took the advice of song-writer Leslie Shepard.

We decided to add tunes to Broadsides that we discovered, uncovered or collected – we checked out the Harkness Collection at Preston and the collections in Manchester etc.

We also used Ashton's Street Ballads and Victorian Street Ballads (Henderson) and on a couple of occasions we dipped into Thomas D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy; that is where we found Mad Maudlin (Tom of Bedlam or the Boys of Bedlam).

Nic and I wrote all the tunes together, usually sitting in the front of the Mini and singing and working out tunes as we drove – as the mandolin was the smallest instrument and Nigel [Patterson] was in the back, he always played the tunes.

'Jones and Moran' wrote a heap of songs like this including Lancashire Lads, Going for a Soldier Jenny, Miles Weatherhill, Calico Printer's Clerk etc.

We wrote the tunes to fit the words and sometimes added or altered words, as in The Workhouse Boy. So Nic and I wrote the tune to D'Urfeys words of Mad Maudlin – audiences were confused and stunned – it was very surreal...

We did a booking in the Midlands and an unaccompanied foursome called the Farriers loved the song and asked if they could sing it unaccompanied. We said, Sure – they were very good, a bit like the Young Tradition. I believe that is how it got into the mainstream.

From Mainly Norfolk; http://mainlynorfolk.info/nic.jones/songs/boysofbedlam.html

Boys of Bedlam; This song is originally from Thomas D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy, published 1720.

There it had the title Mad Maudlin's Search for Her Tom of Bedlam. Steeleye Span learned Boys of Bedlam from the Halliard via the Farriers and Tom Gilfellon.

They recorded it then for their album Please to See the King. This track was later released on the Martin Carthy anthology, The Carthy Chronicles.