There is not the slightest evidnce that Lloyd's work was in any way 'flawed' - not a scrap
As a singer he, MacColl and the rest took their songs from everywhere and didn't bother too much revealing where they got them friom because, in those days, nobofy expected them to
Maccoll took songs he had heard from his family and his Sots neighbours and filled them out from published collections - he was singing them to cinema queues in the depression - before the revival was a twinkle in anybody's eye
"Going back to the topic of this thread:"
I discovered recently that Bert took many of his 'unusual' songs from collectors like Helen Harness Flanders and Edith Fowke - he described them as 'English' because many were brought to Canada and the Eastern American States by emigrants leaving Britain and Ireland in the 19th century- go do your homework before snapping at the heels of giants

As far as 'The Unfortunate rake' is concerned - this is the most travelled song in the repertoire - our exampled tend to be later ones (probably) and were still being re-created in the twentieth century, notably at during WWI about a pilot dying in the wreckage if his bi-plane
You made a stupid issue of your theory that a Clare farmer learned it from a blues singer - basically because of it's 'St James's Hospital' reference
You refused even to comment on the information provided that 'St James's Hospital' was a Charity Institution for diseased young women on the site of the later St James's Palace before the reign if Henry VIII
That's the type of thing Harker would have done   

"Going back to the topic of this thread:"
It's never been departed from and suggesting it has is being manipulative
Please stop being aggressive - doesn't help with friendly discussion
I can't see any reference to St James's Hospital in the title, yet you wax lyrical on the subject, or any you've a mind to
Please stop attempting to manipulate this discussion
Jim Carroll