NEW ZEALAND
FOLK * SONG

Soon May The Wellerman Come

  Traditional lyrics, modified by
Tommy Wood & Neil Colquhoun 1966-72


Kiwi Songs - Maori Songs - Home

The Wellermen of this song refer to ships owned by Weller Brothers of Sydney. They supplied provisions to New Zealand whaling ships and shore whaling stations from their base at Otakou, but they only exchanged stores and whale-oil in sheltered New Zealand harbours.

However they were only given that name in the 1960s, because the song tells of a Wellers ship supplying a whaler in mid-ocean (!), leading to the conclusion that it is from the mid 20th century NZ folksong revival. 

It is derived from the traditional 16th century broadside ballad "The Golden Vanity," about a heroic young crewman who stopped an enemy galley from ramming their ship and sinking it.

There was a gallant ship, and a gallant ship was she
And the name of the ship was the Golden Vanity
Sailin’ on the low, the lowlands low
She sailed upon the lowlands low

She hadn’t sailed a league, a league but only three,
When she was overtaken by a Spanish gallee
Sailin’ on the low, the lowlands low
She sailed upon the lowlands low....more


That song has about a hundred variants, like this later Appalachian one, presumably sung by Yankee whalers.
  
                      

There was a ship sailed on the northern sea
and the name of the ship was the 'Green Willow Tree'
And we sailed in the lowlands, lies so low
We sailed in the lowland O

She wasn't on the sea more than a week or three
When she was overtaken by the Turkish Revelee
And we sailed in the lowlands, lies so low
We sailed in the lowland O.....more
Mocha Dick was an white sperm whale, about 22 metres long and weighing 70 tons that was first attacked by whale boats sometime before 1810 near Mocha Island off the coast of Chile. His exploits gave rise to the Moby Dick novel. His ability to survive about a hundred whalers' attacks made him famous. He was quite docile, but once attacked he retaliated with ferocity and cunning, sinking 20 whaling ships and dozens of whaleboats. (The Nautical Magazine 1908)

A mid-1800s forecastle singer who had heard the stories about Mocha Dick must have changed the attack on The Golden Vanity by Barbary pirates into an attack on a whaling ship by Mocha Dick, and probably came up with something like this...

There was a ship that put to sea,
The name of the ship was the William O'T
The winds blew up, her bow dipped down,
O blow, my bully boys, blow; ho, ho,
O blow, my bully boys, blow;
She had not been two weeks from shore
When down on her a white whale bore.
The captain called all hands and swore
He'd take that whale in tow: ho, ho, etc

Before the boat had hit the water
The whale's tail came up and caught her.
All hands to the side, harpooned and fought her
When he dived down below ho, ho, etc


But Neil Colquhoun did not include Wellerman with the other whaling shanties he printed in his 1965 first edition of "New Zealand Folk Songs."
A 1960s Auckland folk-singer, Tommy Wood told researcher Mike Harding that
"I found an actual poem in the book, but not quite in rhyme, so I had to adjust some of the words." He had started singing a modified version of these verses in Auckland folk cafes in the mid-1960s. (However, extensive archival searches have failed to find such a book!)
Colquhoun was modifying traditional songs for the 1969 NZBC radio series, "Songs of a Young Country," and it seems he added a Wellerman verse and a "Wellers' man" chorus lines to associate the Mocha Dick song with New Zealand whaling.

Our profound thanks go to Dr Michael Brown, who located that original 1969 recording of Wellerman in 2025.

The chorus and 6th verse must have been added later by a non-whaler, probably Colquhoun, because none of the terms tonguing, Wellers' man and Wellerman were 19th century whalermen's terms, and because cases of food cannot be exchanged between ships on the rough seas of the Southern Ocean, with one ship attached to an unstoppable whale.

In 1970, the tapes Colquhoun recorded for the NZBC were rebroadcast in England.

And in June 1971 the BBC children's TV series 'Follyfoot' came out with a theme song that got much radio play. An upbeat version of the Wood/Colquhoun Wellerman tune was used for it.
 

 Down in the meadow where the wind blows free
In the middle of a field stands a lightning tree
It's limbs all torn from the day it was born
For the tree was born in a thunderstorm.

        Grow, grow, the lightning tree
        It's never too late for you and me
        Grow, grow, the lightning tree
        Never give in too easily.

In 1972, when AH & AW Reed published a beautiful second edition of his New Zealand Folk Songs book,  Colquhoun added Wellerman to its whaling section and used the Follyfoot modification of its tune, giving rise to the suspicion that the Lightning Tree's English song-writer, Francis Essex, was the tune's original composer.

And that, dear folkies, is how the Folk Process works. Whew!


  1. There was a ship that put to sea,
    The name of the ship was the Billy of Tea
    The winds blew up, her bow dipped down,
    O blow, my bully boys, blow.
    Soon may the Wellerman come
    And bring us sugar and tea and rum.
    One day, when the tonguin' is done,
    We'll take our leave and go.
  2. She had not been two weeks from shore
    When down on her a right whale bore.
    The captain called all hands and swore
    He'd take that whale in tow.

  3. Before the boat had hit the water
    The whale's tail came up and caught her.
    All hands to the side, harpooned and fought her
    When she dived down below.

  4. No line was cut, no whale was freed;
    The Captain's mind was not of greed,
    But he belonged to the whaleman's creed;
    She took the ship in tow.

  5. For forty days, or even more,
    The line went slack, then tight once more.
    All boats were lost (there were only four)
    But still the whale did go.

  6. As far as I've heard, the fight's still on;
    The line's not cut and the whale's not gone.
    The Wellerman makes his regular call
    To encourage the Captain, crew, and all.


2019 Parody - The Needleman

The Covid-19 pneumonococcal virus killed millions worldwide in its first year, including more than 150,000 medical workers. New Zealand went into lockdown until vaccines were developed, mass-manufactured, distributed and injected.

The Needleman
I’ll tell you how this all began
A jungle virus in Wuhan
First it went from bat to man
Then round the world it flew.

The tourists flocked here, more and more,
And down on us the Covid bore
Jacinta roused her team and swore
To lay that virus low.

Soon may the Needleman come
An' vaccinate us one by one
One day when the Covid is gone
We can drop our masks and go . . .
FOR A COFFEE!  YEAHHH!

The world’s upturned, so much disorder
We’re now locked down inside our border.
An' I've became a loo roll hoarder
'Cause I still have to go!

It's 40 weeks or even more
Since I've slept with sweet Elenore
Frustration's now at Level Four
We're ready to explode!

Soon may the Needleman come
An' vaccinate us one by one
One day when the Covid is gone
We can drop our masks and go...
AN’ MAKE LOVE AGAIN!

As far as I know, the fight’s still on
We still wear masks, the bug’s not gone
The Needleman makes his regular call
To jab the arms of one and all.

Soon may the Needleman come
An' vaccinate us one by one
One day when the Covid is gone
We can drop our masks and go...
ANYWHERE WE WANT TO!  YEAHHH!


Substitute your own frustrated desire at the end of each chorus. Our New Zealand leader is PM Jacinta Ardern, but substitute your own leader and your own country's Covid response. Or write alternative (humorous?) verses to evoke your own situation.

Some New Zealanders were swayed by American social media and protested the anti-pandemic lockdowns and vaccinations by driving in convoy to parliament in Wellington and staging a long-term protest there.  Me And Convoy 22                                                    

Mau Mai Te Werimana
This Maori-language version was translated by Justin Kereama and performed by the Harmonic Resonators. The words here have been chosen to give a rhyming version rather than an exact translation.

Other New Zealand Sea Shanties
Toia Mai (Ancient) 
hauling-ashore chant
Davy Lowston (1815) 
Sealers marooned in Fiordland
Blood Red Roses (1950s)
Modified from old whaling shanty
Come All You Tonguers (1830s)
Old shore-whaling shanty
Across The Line (1850s)
around the world and home again

John Smith A. B. (1850s)
drowned in latitude fifty-three

Tonguing

No, this does not refer to sexual foreplay, but to cutting long strips of blubber, known as tongues, off the carcass of the beached whales. (written in 2002)

Sorry, I was misinformed by the misuse of the term when  the old Mocha Dick song was 'Kiwi-ized' in 1966.

The strips of blubber were called blankets, and the work was called flensing. The strips were then cut into smaller pieces that were boiled down in large pots to obtain whale oil.  More details here.

The word was used correctly in the old shanty, "Come all you tonguers and land-loving lubbers." Tonguers were beachcombers who followed the whalers to 'trying-out' grounds and made a meagre living by scraping the bones and rendering down the portions of the whales, including the tongues, discarded by the ships.  (Source 1923)

The Billy of Tea

The phrase billy of tea was first noted in Australian usage in 1839. A "billy" was made by Australian gold miners who put a handle made out of no. 8 wire on an empty can which had contained tinned meat, and which was bent into a point at one edge to make a "bill" for easy pouring. They hung it over their fire to boil water for making a drink of tea.

I started wondering if whalers who were former goldminers had given this new slang word to a ship with a name like "William O' Toole" or "William O. Thompson." So I went searching on the internet.

A search of the New Bedford Free Public Library's wonderfully-detailed Whaling ship database shows that the "William Rotch" made two whaling voyages out of New Bedford, from June 1843 to May 1847, and from Sept 1847 to October 1851. The second voyage was to the Pacific, the first was not detailed, but possibly to there also. Was this the original "Billy O T" ??


Whaling in New Zealand

In the 18th and 19th centuries, whale oil was was in great demand for lubricating industrial machinery, and as a clean burning fuel for lamps.

In the late 18th century, whaling ships came from Europe, America, and Australia to catch whales the waters off New Zealand. The whalers quickly discovered that whales from the mid Pacific Ocean, began to arrive off the west coast of New Zealand in early May each year, and made their way south past Kapiti Island and the mainland, heading through Cook Strait for Kaikoura and then Stewart Island.

So whalers set up whaling stations in those areas where the whales were known to frequent or pass through:

  • 1828, Cloudy Bay, Foveaux Strait
  • 1829, Arapawa Island, Malborough Sounds
  • 1831, Weller's Bay Whaling Station, Otago Harbour.
  • pre-1837, Richards & Co two stations on Kapiti Island
  • 1837, A. Oliver at Ocean Bay and Port Underwood
  • 1839, Acker Whaling Station Colihoc [Colac] Bay, Stewart Island
  • ----, Preservation Harbour, Foveaux Sound,
  • 1841, Fyffe Whaling Station, Kaikoura
  • ----, Mana island, near Wellington
  • 1846, Tuatuku Station, Sth-east Stewart Island

The workers at these bay-whaling stations were not paid wages, they were paid in slops (ready-made clothing), spirits and tobacco. Weller Bros were major suppliers of shore whalers supplies, as this 1839 contract to supply the Acker whaling station at Colac Bay shows:

Agreement with Lewis Acker 24th Dec 1839 to whale at Colihoc Bay, Centre Island. Weller Bros to provide casks, trypot, as required for a fishery (3 boats) and supply provisions and gear. . .
However the Wellers failed to supply provisions for that 1840 season. When the Weller vessel eventually turned up, Acker had disposed of the boats and gear and was getting ready to return to America.

Wellers' Whaling Station
Joseph Weller, a wealthy Englishman businessman, was unwell, suffering from Tb, and was advised by his doctor to take a sea voyage. He became interested in emigrating to Australia and arrived there with his wife and sons in 1830.

Some of the family's ample capital was invested in land and property but their main interest was directed towards whaling and in 1831 he purchased a barque the "Lucy Ann." After obtaining a crew and provisions, two of his sons, Joseph Jr and Edward, set sail for New Zealand in it, in September 1831.

They landed in Port Chalmers at a promontory 'Te Umu Kuri' (which became known as Wellers' Rock) to the south of Tairoa Head - and established a whaling station there.

It is not known what arrangements were made with the local Maori, but construction of the whaling station started immediately. However a few months later, the station and its whalers houses were been burned to the ground by a Maori raiding party.

Whaling operations in 1832 were clearly severely restricted by this, but in May 1832 Weller sent his son George from Sydney in the Lucy Ann to help his brothers re-establish the Station for the 1833 bay-whaling season. With Joseph Jr. in charge, whaling at Otakou (as the Weller station was then known) was very successful, with 130 tuns (barrels) of whale oil being collected. A tun (barrel holding 950 litres) of sperm oil sold for about £45, a year's wages for an educated person, and a tun of right whale oil sold for about £15, a year's wages for a labourer.
- the Church Missionary Society had been at the Bay of Islands since 1814, but this was 800 nautical miles north of Otago.

- a Free Church of Scotland settlement was established in Otago in 1848.
In 1834 Joseph Jr. became ill with Tb and died, and because there was not yet a Christian burial ground or minister anywhwere in Otago, his young brother Edward pickled his corpse in a puncheon of rum and shipped it back to Sydney for burial.

So Edward Weller became manager of Weller's Otakou establishment when he was only twenty years of age. For a few years the business flourished, becoming one of the biggest whaling stations on the New Zealand coast, and did considerable business with calling ships as a general store.

Difficulties began to increase. The number of whales using those coastal waters became fewer in number; opposition from other whalers became more severe; there were difficulties over land possession, both with the local Maori and also with the New Zealand Government. In 1840 Edward Weller returned to Sydney due to to ill health and did not return.

Octavious Harwood, an employer of Wellers, then bought part of the Otakou station in partnership with C.W. Schultze the Station's manager, and they ran it together -mainly as a general store for other whalers.

A Shore-whaler's Memories
76-year-old William Haberfield talked to a Dunedin Evening Star reporter in 1891.
"I came to Otago in a brig named the Micmac, and landed at Otago on the 17th March, 1836 (St. Patrick's Day). The very day after we landed, they killed a couple of fair sized whales right up in the harbour. They were the first whales I ever saw killed. The boats were not away more than twenty minutes before they had them both, and they were killed in a twinkling...."  More

Dr Edward Pohau Ellison, OBE

Edward Weller's grandson, Edward Pohau Ellison, had a long and faithful career as a Medical Officer and Public Servant in the Pacific Islands.

Edward's paternal grandfather, Thomas Ellison, had left his home in England as a cabin boy on one of the East India Company's boats, settled in Australia and later went whaling in Otakou, and then established his own whaling station further to the north in the Malborough Sounds. He married Ika-i-raua, daughter of the chief Whati of the Ngati-Tama. After Thomas was drowned in a storm at sea, his whaling station was taken over by a son, Raniera Ellison.

At the same time, at the Weller brothers whaling station at Otakou, Edward Weller's first wife Paparu died, and he then married Nikuru Taiaroa, who also died, after giving birth to her first child, Hannah Nani Tairoa Weller.

Raniera Ellison gave up whaling for goldmining, and in later years he married Hannah Weller. They moved to a farm near Otaki, where Edward Ellison was born, and after many difficulties, graduated in medicine at Otago University. Te Hou
.............
...........Te Whati
...............|
....Te Ikairaua m. Thomas Ellison
......................|
Matenga Taiaroa m. Hinewhareua
.........................|
......... Nikuru Taiaroa m. Edward Weller
......... .......................|

Raniera Ellison .............m. ....... ....Hannah Nani Weller
| ......
.Edward Pohau Ellison..........



Maude Gonne's version

Tarek Bazley's 1995 Dunedin Celtic rock band Maud Gonne (or Whole Peeled) also has a very energetic version of this song.

This version was also picked up by the Pioneer Pog'n'Scroggin Bush Band.

  1. There was a ship that put to sea,
    The name of the ship was the Rosy Lee
    The winds blew up, the rum went down,
    And the southern seas did blow.

    Soon may the Wellerman come
    And bring us sugar and tea and rum.
    One day, when the whalin' is done,
    We'll take our leave and go.
  2. We'd not been two weeks from shore
    When we spied a whale and furthermore
    The captain called all hands and swore
    He'd take that whale in tow.

  3. Soon as the boat had hit the water
    A whale's tail came up and caught her.
    All hands on deck harpooned and caught her
    And we tok that whale in tow

  4. A line we dropped down in pursuit
    She raised her tail, a last salute
    The harpoon lodged there's no dispute
    Then she dived down below.

  5. For six long days, and six long nights,
    She took us south with all her might
    Until we were too tired to fight
    And then we let her go.

  6. The line was cut, the whale was freed
    The captain's mind was not on greed
    But he belonged to the sailers' creed
    So we let that wha-ale go

Mike Moroney writes;

"The fiddle player in the Pog band at that time was Tarek Bazley (whom you hear interviewing auspicious people on National Radio these days). Tarek was also a member of a fantastic, yet rough-as-guts, originals band called Maud Gonne that had a strong celt-folk feel to them. We picked up that version of Wellerman pretty much as is from Tarek's band."

"Wellerman" on record

1972 Compilation album. Song of a Young Country (LP)
1975 Phil Garland, Colonial Yesterdays, (LP)
1977? Cant. Crutchings Bush and Ceilidh Band, Landfall New Zealand (cass.)
1977 Irish Rovers, "The Irish Rovers in New Zealand" (NZBC Program)
1994 The Maud Gonne Band, The Difficult Third Album (LP) - changed lyrics
1985 The Morgans, Soundings for the Whale Conn. USA, (cass. )
1995 Bok, Muir & Trickett, And So Will We Yet Maine USA, (cass. CD)
1998 Pioneer Pog n' Scroggin Bush Band, Sesqui (CD) - changed lyrics
1998 Whole Peeled, Induce (CD) - changed lyrics
1998 Mike Harding, Past to the present (CD)
1999 Bill & Kath Worsfold. New Zealand Tour. (CD)
2003 The Maritime Crew, Under the Southern Cross (CD)
2005 Bruce Paine, Guitar@museum (CD)
2007 The Marit. Crew & Folgearster Folk, On The Road Together, Holland (CD)
2010 The 2009/10 NZ Secondary Students' Choir in concert. (CD)
2013 Wgtn Sea Shanty Society, That's What I Call Sea Shanties 1 (CD)
2014 The Maritime Crew. Under the Southern Cross (CD)
2016 The Maritime Crew. Rolling the whole world round. (CD)
2018 Rhodeworks. Unrealistic expectations. (CD)
2018 Song of a young country (CD)
2018 The Longest Johns, Between Wind and Water. Spotify (CD?)
2018 Wgtn Sea Shanty Society, Ahoy. Spotify (CD?)

Kiwi Songs - Maori Songs - Home

Page published on the internet 9th Sept 2002, family tree added June 2006,
updated 2021, Werimana added April 2023, corrections made November 2025.