> There is no foundation for the claim that the composer was Mozart or Col. R. Mellish. <

Another cherished illusion bites the dust. The story in my family was that the tune had been written by Col. Henry Mellish, who was probably a brother of a direct ancestor. Certainly a picture of him looks very like my father as a young man and even more like me as a young man.

But then another story in my family was that the colonel had been adc to Wellington, whereas this reference says it was a less illustrious general.