The clue word here was on both sides, it was "SQUALL". In the case of our card it refers to a squall at sea, and you can get white squalls, like here, or black ones. Both are wind-driven but the black version is accompanied by a sudden darkness and the white version is all the more scary because it comes without warning. And a squall has sunk many a ship, though oddly white squalls are more common on inland water than on the ocean.
It has the same principle on land, where the snow brings cold and also ice, plus a driving wind, and it happens fast, so that one minute you are driving along a road and the next the snow and the whiteness has enveloped you.
This is a very unusual set, and a most attractive one - and you can see all the other cards courtesy of the Trading Card Database/Nautical. Lots of familiar, and unknown, songs and shanties are depicted, and I am very surprised that I have never come across it before.
Our song, "White Squall", was written in 1847. Now the confusion starts, because the card clearly says George M. Barker but if you look it up this song is credited to George Arthur Barker, born on April 15th, 1812, in London.
He was not only a composer, he also sang, tenor. According to the Petrucci Music Library, he wrote almost twenty other songs, and even arranged the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Not so sure about that myself, but I am happy to be corrected.
He died in Leicestershire on March 2nd 1876.
Our original reference booklet to the issues of R. & J. Hill lists this set as :
1937. 30. NAUTICAL SONGS (titled series) Size 2 17/18 x 1 1/2". Numbered 1-30. Fronts, printed in four colours by litho offset, marginal lines and white margins. Backs, printed in grey-black, and inscribed, "Issued by The Spinet House, R. & J. Hill Ltd and Hy Archer & Co." (See Henry Archer & Co.).
Printer unknown.
This is shortened in the World Tobacco Issues Indexes to simply "NAUTICAL SONGS. Sm, 67 x 38. Nd. (30)"