History[edit]
The origin of the song is often suggested that the subject of the song may be Charles Edward Stuart ('Bonnie Prince Charlie'):[1] after the defeat of the Prince at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 and his subsequent exile, his Jacobite supporters could have sung the tune in his honour; and thanks to the ambiguity of the term "bonnie", which can refer to a woman as well as to a man, they could pretend it was a love song.
In 1881, under the duo of pseudonyms H.J. Fuller and J.T. Wood, Charles E. Pratt published sheet music for "Bring Back My Bonnie to Me".[2][3][4] Theodore Raph in his 1964 book American song treasury: 100 favorites, writes that people were requesting the song at sheet music stores in the 1870s, and Pratt was convinced to publish a version of it under the pseudonyms, and the song became a big hit, especially popular with college singing groups but also popular for all group singing situations.[3]