 Its popularity was hugely increased by a popular melodrama "The Green Bushes, or A Hundred Years Ago" by William Buckstone, first performed in 1845.The heroine of the play made repeated reference to the song and sang a few verses, with the result that the sheet music was published soon after.One of, if not the, earliest recordings is a 1907 performance by Joseph Taylor, collected on wax cylinder by the musicologist Percy Grainger in 1907.