Waltzing Matilda or recordings of bush ballads include anything to suggest it preceded Paterson. Meanwhile, handwritten manuscripts from the time the song originated indicate the song's origins with Paterson and Christina Macpherson, as do their own recollections and other pieces of evidence. There has been speculation about the relationship "Waltzing Matilda" bears to an English song, "The Bold Fusilier" (also known as "Marching through Rochester", referring to Rochester in Kent and the Duke of Marlborough), a song sung to the same tune and dated by some back to the 18th century but first printed in 1900. There is, however, no documentary proof
John Macpherson (minister) John Macpherson (minister) John Macpherson (1710–1765) was a Scottish minister and antiquarian. The son of Dugald Macpherson, minister at Duirinish, Skye, he studied classics at Aberdeen University, graduating M.A. 1728, and D.D. 1761. He was minister of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, 1734 to 1742, and of Sleat on Skye, from 1742 to 1765. Macpherson published "Critical Dissertations on the Origin, Antiquities, Language, Government, Manners, Religion of the Ancient Caledonians, their Posterity, the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots", London, 1768. This work on the Ossian controversy upheld the authenticity of the poems attributed to Ossian. Though not closely