Very interesting discussion, many thanks.

Regarding Brian Peters' comment that:

The same tune crops up for #81 in the recently-published 1909 collection of the Kentucky ballad collector Katherine Jackson French. However, it's pretty obvious that she copied it from Chappell and grafted on the text of a Kentucky version collected by Olive Dame Campbell - something the editor doesn't seem to have spotted.

There is a version of Little Musgrave (not Matty Groves although it's American), sung by Jean Ritchie, who came from Kentucky - and the tune she sang it to sounds to me as if it was based loosely on the Motherwell/Chappell/Rimbault tune, although it's very different from it - there's a youtube recording here. Do others hear a simiilarity between her tune and the British one?

Dave