I remember reading in a book that Lomax assumed the blues/jazz standard "St. James' Infirmary" to be based on "St. James' Hospital" and that the Ironhead version in particular was Lomax' proposed missing link between the two songs.

There's no way of knowing whether the text as Ironhead sung it really mentioned St. James Hospital, since the opening line is missing from the sound recording (coincidence?), so it is possible that Lomax made that up based on G. A. Griffin's or other similar versions.

I wish somebody had access to the original papers from Lomax' field collecting work to give us more insight into this.
I'm not trying to discredit Alan Lomax, but this is something that's been on my mind since I first heard about the St. James Hospital/Infirmary" connection.

I also just realized that I was posting those field recordings in response to someone who started this thread in 1998.
Anyways, I'm glad I could contribute something interesting by posting the Griffin recording.

I've been interested in the "Rake" family of songs for quite some time and I have assembled a huge collection of sound recordings of variants.
I'm at work right now, but when I'm back home I'll be happy to take part in the discussion and share whatever info and thoughts I have that might be useful.