The contemplator website also has MIDI files which will let you listen to the tune as she was meant to be sung. This song was written in 1877 by Percy French at Trinity College for a college concert. His original title was Abdulla Bulbul Ameer. He sold it to a publisher for five pounds. It was published without credit to him and he never received royalties for its later success.
Many sources still list the author as anonymous.
My father was a Navy captain and this was one of his favorite songs. An English correspondent writes that originally it was a ballad of the Russo-Turkish Wars. This tune is also known as The Ballade of Ivan Petrofsky Skevar, for which there are a few variations in the lyrics. His father was a landlord and his mother's father was a clergyman. Despite the lack of music background in his family, Willie demonstrated talent for music and entertaining early in life.