Though resident in Swansea, Henry Rogers was a native of Aberdeen (born c.1822).  He was hanged on the 12th September, 1857, outside Kirkdale Gaol; the crowd was assessed at the time as being between 20 and 40 thousand (Report in the Liverpool Mercury, 14th September 1857).  Orkney tradition has it that Ross was a native of Stronsay whose given name was John, though his father was called Andrew; records indicate that he was born in 1832, and died on the 5th June 1857.  The Andrew Ross in the DT was first published in the Orkney Herald (11th February 1925) though, as I mentioned earlier, the earliest known example seems to have been of the first decade of the 20th century.

Roy Palmer, from whose article (cited above) this information comes, suggests that Ross may have been suffering from a psychiatric disorder, consequent upon illness picked up in the West Indies ( he signed on for the passage home from Barbados); certainly, witnesses at the trail recalled his cropped hair, and assumed as much.  He appears to have suffered from occasional incontinence, too, which goes some way to explaining some of the details of the way he was treated.

Palmer's enquiries of Orkney families believed to be connected to Ross were unfruitful; nobody seemed to want to be associated with this sordid event, which is understandable.  It certainly appears that news of John/Andrew's death did not reach Orkney straight away (except via court reports which did not fully identify him); there is a tradition that the song was sung at a wedding at Eday where his sister was present, and that she fainted on realising whom it concerned.