Billycan - Definition

A billycan, more commonly known simply as a billy or occasionally as a billy can, is the traditional Australian utensil for boiling water, making tea and cooking anything liquid on a campfire.

A billy is cylindrical, with its height about one and a half to two times its diameter. It comes with a wire handle, to allow any handy stick to be used to move the hot billy off the fire or to its edge to keep it hot, and normally a close-fitting lid with its own wire handle is also provided. Traditionally there is no spout or pouring lip of any kind. Originally made of thin tin-plated steel, billies are now more commonly made of aluminium, and stainless steel billies are also available. Billies come in many sizes, from about two cups capacity to a gallon or more. Modern Australians would more often boil a billy on a portable stove than on a campfire, but campfires are still preferred when available.

A quite adequate billy, but without a lid, can be made from one of the larger sizes of tin can (so long as the lining is metal and not plastic!) and a piece of fencing-wire for the handle, and this was possibly how the first billies were made. A number 10 can makes a medium large billy, and has just the right proportions.

Billy tea is made by boiling the water in a billy, adding the tea immediately after removing the billy from the fire, and allowing the tea to draw for a time. Then often one of several methods is employed to make the tea-leaves settle to the bottom of the billy before pouring, preferably into mugs known as pannikins. Billy Tea is also the registered brand name of a popular brand of tea long sold in Australian grocers and supermarkets, but this Billy Tea makes equally good tea in a teapot, and conversely any good black tea will make well in a billy.

To boil the billy most often means to make tea, but coffee is also made occasionally, either instead or as well.

The billy in Australian literature

Henry Lawson

A billy features in many of Henry Lawson's stories and poems. Some examples:

The swagman tramping ’cross the plain;
Good Lord, there’s nothing sadder,
Except the dog that slopes behind
His master like a shadder;
The turkey-tail to scare the flies,
The water-bag and billy;
The nose-bag getting cruel light,
The traveller getting silly.

- But What’s the Use (http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/L/LawsonHenry/verse/popular_humorous/butwhatuse.html).

" 'I’M going to knock off work and try to make some money,' said Mitchell, as he jerked the tea-leaves out of his pannikin and reached for the billy." - Mitchell’s Jobs (http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/L/LawsonHenry/prose/onthetrack/mitchelljobs.html).

"The hatter warmed up the tea-billy again, got out some currant buns, which he had baked himself in the camp-oven,..." - The House that was Never Built (http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/L/LawsonHenry/prose/romanceofswag/houseneverbuilt.html)

"Then he made a fire in the kitchen, and hung the kettle and a big billy of water over it." - A Child in the Dark, and a Foreign Father (http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/L/LawsonHenry/prose/trianglesoflife/childdark.html)

"I started early, and Mary caught up to me at Ryan’s Crossing on Sandy Creek, where we boiled the billy and had some dinner." - [http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/L/LawsonHenry/prose/joewilsonandmates/watergeraniums1.html ‘Water Them Geraniums’. I. A Lonely Track.]

"Mitchell and I turned off the track at the rabbit-proof fence and made for the tank in the mulga. We boiled the billy and had some salt mutton and damper." - The Lost Souls’ Hotel (http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/L/LawsonHenry/prose/sendroundthehat/lostsoulshotel.html)

"Then he went to the camp-fire to try some potatoes which were boiling in their jackets in a billy, and to see about frying some chops for dinner." - The Loaded Dog (http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/L/LawsonHenry/prose/joewilsonandmates/loadeddog.html).

I mind the days we played at camp
With billy-can and swag,...

- The “Soldier Birds” (http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/L/LawsonHenry/verse/skylineriders/soldierbirds.html)

"Then he lifted his swag quietly from the end of the floor, shouldered it, took up his water-bag and billy, and sneaked over the road, away from the place, like a thief." - An Incident at Stiffner’s (http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/L/LawsonHenry/prose/overthesliprail/stiffner.html)

Banjo Patterson

Banjo Patterson's most famous of many references to the billy is surely in the first verse and chorus of Waltzing Matilda:

"And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled..."