About Wellerman - Sea Shanty

"Soon May the Wellerman Come", also known as "Wellerman" or "The Wellerman" [c.?1860–70] is a sea song from New Zealand. The song refers to the "wellermen", pointing to supply ships owned by the Weller brothers who were settlers from England. In early 2021, versions by English folk music group The Longest Johns, Scottish singer Nathan Evans, and Scottish pirate metal band Alestorm became viral hits on the social media site TikTok, leading to a "social media craze" around songs erroneously considered sea shanties.

The history of whaling in New Zealand stretches from the late eighteenth century to 1965. In 1831, the UK-born Weller Brothers Edward, George and Joseph, who had immigrated 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.