Johnny Todd he took a notion
For to sail the ocean wide,
And he left his true love behind him,
Weeping by the Liverpool tide.
Perhaps you don’t recognise the words.  But I’m sure that you recognise this:

The song includes this verse, too:

Johnny Todd came back from sailing,
Sailing o’er the ocean wide,
But he found that his fair and false one
Was another sailor’s bride.
This is taken from the 1891 collection of traditional tunes by Frank Kidson.

Now,

Thomas Hood (23 May 1799 – 3 May 1845) was an English poet, author and humorist.

Thomas Hood was famous for his puns.

One of his poems is about Ben, a carpenter, and Sally Brown:

…

But as they fetched a walk one day,
  They met a press-gang crew;
And Sally she did faint away,
  Whilst Ben he was brought to.       (18th C slang)

The boatswain swore with wicked words
  Enough to shock a saint,
That, though she did seem in a fit,
  ’T was nothing but a feint.            (geddit?)

“Come, girl,” said he, “hold up your head.
  He ’ll be as good as me;
For when your swain is in our boat
  A boatswain he will be.

…

“And is he gone, and is he gone?”
  She cried and wept outright;
“Then I will to the water-side,
   And see him out of sight.”

A somewhat different start to “Johnny Todd” perhaps, but the end result is the same:

Now Ben had sailed to many a place
  That ’s underneath the world;
But in two years the ship came home,
   And all her sails were furled.

But when he called on Sally Brown,
   To see how she got on,
He found she’d got another Ben,
  Whose Christian-name was John.

…

The 2017 Disorganised Christmas Lunch was held at The George, Wanstead (although at the time of the Disorganised, it was snowing….

There has been a pub on the site of “The George” site for hundreds of years. Set in to the side of the pub is a plaque dating from 1752 which was formerly part of an older pub building. The plaque is inscribed with the eccentrically spelled verse:

In Memory of
Ye Cherry Pey
As cost 1/2 a Guiney
Ye 17 of July
That day we had good cheer
I hope to so do maney a Year
R C 1752 D Jerry

There are various local legends explaining this curious plaque, including a tale of the theft of a cherry pie by local workmen who were caught and fined half a guinea (52.5p). However the most likely explanation is that it was placed there by the landlord of 1752, David Jersey (corrupted by centuries of repainting and re-cutting the inscription to D Jerry on the plaque), commemorating a feast which included a huge cherry pie.

Now, Thomas Hood came to live in Wanstead, staying from 1832 to 1835, and mentioned the cherry orchards of Wanstead in one of his poems,

Inside the pub, mounted on the wall near the bar, there is a wooden plaque to the memory of Thomas Hood.   The arrow is pointing to the approximate location of this memorial.

Thomas Hood’s poem, “Faithless Sally Brown” ends with perhaps the most famous couplet in English poetry:

His death, which happened in his berth,
  At forty-odd befell;
They went and told the sexton, and
  The sexton tolled the bell.