Tim,

As far as I've gathered, it first appeared in the singable collection by Bradford and Fagge, 1904. By "singable," I mean: The editors made musical score arrangements so that "classical" performers and such could pick up the book, sing exactly what was presented... and have a piano accompanists.

A recording studio-based classical vocal quartet, the Minster Singers, did just that in 1905. They recorded all 8 songs in the Bradford and Fagge book, verbatim, I suppose, on 4 gramophone records.

The rest of Bradford and Fagge is standard chanty fare, looking to maybe have some borrowings in the arrangements from Davis and Tozer's collection (the only other singable collection at that time). The editors don't appear (to me) to have had any particular deep knowledge that would lend to them uncovering some "rare" chanty. It's quite possible that they simply made up "The Capstan Bar."

The Gull's Way (1937), by English theatre actor Nancy Price, goes on to quote lyrics of "The Capstan Bar." Price claims to have worked to it on a ship, but, sorry, I have a hard time believing she didn't lift it from Bradford and Fagge.

By the time we get to Hugill... grrr... I think he just grabbed it and took it at face value. Maybe someone can prove my suspicion wrong. But that was Hugill's M.O. for SfSS: Virtually *any* "shanty" he found mentioned somewhere, he popped it into the book. He didn't seem to have done any rigorous critique of where he was getting things from. Likewise, verses that were almost certainly made up by people like Davis and Tozer (who really make no claim to representing what sailors actually sang), Hugill popped in there. It's why Hugill's book is such a pain when it comes to wanting historical info. The quality of info ranges all the way from chanties that he sang himself at work down to random scraps of ideas from shoddy sources... but how to know exactly which is which? Hugill did little to "weigh" the info like, "So, I found this thing, but here's what the source is, so take it with a grain of salt." This allowed people to think (and whether or not Hugill bears any responsibility for this is debatable): "Hugill gave us this! The great sailor who speaks fluent Samoan [lol], has sailed the seven seas... has tattoos!...has a craggy voice!...saw a lot of whorehouses!... It (all) must be the real deal -- and who are YOU to question, hmm?"