Soon May the Wellerman Come

The history of whaling in New Zealand stretches from the late-eighteenth century to 1965. In 1831, the English-born Weller brothers Edward, George and Joseph, who had migrated to Sydney in 1829, founded a whaling station at Otakou near modern Dunedin in the South Island of New Zealand, some seventeen years before the first British settlement of Dunedin.[3] Speaking at centennial celebrations in 1931, New Zealand's Governor General Lord Bledisloe recalled how the Weller brothers had on their voyage to New Zealand "brought in the 'Lucy Ann' (the Weller brothers' barque) a good deal of rum and a good deal of gunpowder...and some at least were rum characters".[3] From 1833, the Weller brothers sold provisions to whalers in New Zealand from their base at Otakou, which they had named "Otago" in approximation of the local Māori pronunciation.[3] Their employees became known as "wellermen".[1][3] Unlike whaling in the Atlantic and northern Pacific, whalers in New Zealand practised shore-based whaling which required them to process the whale carcasses on land.[6] The industry drew whalers to New Zealand from a diverse range of backgrounds encompassing not just the British Isles but also Native Americans, Pacific Islanders and Indigenous Australians.[6] The whalers depended on good relations with the local Maori people and the whaling industry integrated the Maori into the global economy and produced hundreds of intermarriages between whalers and local Maori, including Edward Weller himself, who was twice married to Maori women,[6] thus linking the Wellers to one of the most prominent local Māori families, the Ellisons.

In its heyday in 1834, the Otakou station was producing 310 tons of whale oil a year[3] and became the centre of a network of seven stations that formed a highly profitable enterprise for the Wellers, employing as many as 85 people at Otago alone.[7] From the Otakou base the Wellers branched out into industries as diverse as "timber, spars, flax, potatoes, dried fish, Maori artefacts, and even tattooed Maori heads which were in keen demand in Sydney".[8] However, given that the Colony of New Zealand would not be declared until 1840, the Wellers were treated as foreign traders and were affected by ruinous British import tariffs on whale oil.[9] By 1835, the year that Joseph Weller died in Otago, the brothers became convinced of the need to abandon the station even as they branched out into massive land purchases in New Zealand, which amounted to nearly 3,000,000 acres by 1840.[8] The Weller brothers' success in the whaling industry was fleeting, and they were declared bankrupt in 1840 after failed attempts at large-scale land purchase in New South Wales.[10] The Otakou station closed in 1841.[3] In 1841, the Court of Claims in New South Wales ruled that the Weller brothers' purchases of land in New Zealand were legally invalid, after which the Wellers "slipped unobtrusively out of the pages of New Zealand history".[8] Nonetheless, whaling in New Zealand continued up until the 1960s.

The song's lyrics describe a whaling ship called the "Billy o' Tea" and its hunt for a right whale. The song describes how the ship's crew hope for a "wellerman" (an employee of the Weller brothers, who owned ships that brought provisions to New Zealand whalers) to arrive and bring them supplies of luxuries, with the chorus stating "soon may the wellerman come, to bring us sugar and tea and rum." According to the song's listing on the website New Zealand Folk Song, "the workers at these bay-whaling stations (shore whalers) were not paid wages, they were paid in slops (ready made clothing), spirits and tobacco."[1] In the whaling industry in 19th-century New Zealand, the Weller brothers owned ships that would sell provisions to whaling boats.[3] The chorus continues with the crew singing of their hope that "one day when the tonguin' is done we'll take our leave and go". "Tonguing" in this context refers to the practice of cutting strips of whale blubber to render into oil.[6] Subsequent verses detail the captain's determination to bring in the whale in question, even as time passes and multiple whaling boats are lost in the struggle. In the last verse, the narrator describes how the Billy o' Tea is still locked in an ongoing struggle with the whale, with the wellerman making a "regular call" to encourage the captain and crew.

The song is believed to have been written in New Zealand around 1860–1870.[3] While its authorship is unknown, it may have been written by a teenage sailor or shore whaler[11] and may have served as a "cutting-in shanty" that whalers would sing as they slaughtered a whale.[12] It was originally collected around 1966 by New Zealand-based music teacher and folk song compiler Neil Colquhoun[13] from one F. R. Woods. Woods, who was in his 80s at the time, had allegedly heard the song, as well as the song "John Smith A.B.", from his uncle. The song "John Smith A.B." was printed in a 1904 issue of The Bulletin, where it was attributed to one D.H. Rogers. It is possible that Rogers was the uncle of Woods and that Rogers had worked as a teenaged sailor or shore whaler in the early-mid 19th century, composing both songs in his later years and eventually passing them on to his nephew as an old man.[1] In 1973, "Soon May the Wellerman Come" was included in Colquhoun's book of New Zealand folk songs, New Zealand Folksongs: Songs of a Young Country.[14]

The song has been frequently performed and/or remixed, with over 10 recorded renditions between 1967 and 2005. In 1990, the New England-based folk trio of Gordon Bok, Ann Mayo Muir, and Ed Trickett recorded a version on their disc And So Will We Yet, produced by Folk-Legacy Records of Sharon, CT.[15] In 2013, the Wellington Sea Shanty Society released a version of the song on their album Now That's What I Call Sea Shanties Vol. 1.[16] A particularly well-known rendition of the song was made by the Bristol-based a capella group The Longest Johns on their collection of nautical songs Between Wind and Water in 2018.[17] In the wake of the "ShantyTok" social media sensation in 2021, Wellington Sea Shanty Society member Lake Davineer remarked that their recording had experienced a new burst of popularity.[18]

• Notes and Lyrics to Soon May The Wellerman Come On New Zealand Folk Song.