The Story

Billy Barlow was both a song and the alter ego of performer George Coppin. The narrator and protagonist of the song is a classic ‘new chum’ character, a type that recurs again and again in Australian popular culture. Fresh off the boat from England or Ireland, he comes to Australia in search of his fortune. However Barlow is a hapless innocent, and once in the new country finds himself hounded by bushrangers and police; his cattle are speared by ‘blacks’ and drought causes his crops to fail. Through parody, we can see many of the concerns and hopes that were on the minds of early European settlers – the struggles with climate, with Indigenous people, with the law – but also the promise of bettering one’s station through work and opportunities that didn’t exist back in England. It is also full of pungent language – ‘portable soup’ (presumably moonshine) and ‘gammon’ which seems to mean ‘cheated’ or ‘fake’ here (and interestingly is also common word in twenty-first century Aboriginal English to mean cheap or fake). It is a rich and funny song, strangely offset by the mournful feeling of the minor key and the ooom-pha funeral march feel.

Billy Barlow was a portable song. It was popular in London before Coppin introduced it to Sydney audiences by simply adding some new local verses and published it as ‘Billy Barlow’s visit to Sydney.’ Later that same year, a ‘Gentleman in Maitland’ – Benjamin Pitt Griffin – wrote and published further new local verses under the title Billy Barlow in Australia, which became so popular that they were regularly performed back in London. The version reproduced below, and the version performed at the concert at Elizabeth Bay House in 2023 is an amalgam of the ‘Sydney’ and ‘Maitland’ versions of the song. Coppin and others continued to change the lyrics depending on the location and circumstance. It was a way of inserting local details and topical subject matter into a set comic piece. Coppin also appeared in character outside Australia, including in San Francisco where he performed ‘Barlow’s Farewell to California’.

In many ways Barlow’s story was a reflection of Coppin’s own life. He, too, left England for lands of greater promise – Australia – in 1842 and went through many stages of boom and bust once here. Although unlike Barlow, Coppin’s chosen business was showbusiness, and as well as being a singer was an inveterate owner and seller of theatres and promoter of international touring artists. The parody of Barlow acquires some poignancy and layers of meaning seen in this light.

Billy Barlow was performed across the southeast of the colony, many times, and in many different settings, from theatres to salons, especially at the Royal Victorian. It was widely considered to be entertaining, but fairly low-class fare, and Coppin’s stable of comic characters were often considered vulgar creations. Coppin often appeared with blackface minstrels. As The Dispatch put it in ‘Our Weekly Gossip’:  ‘The attention of the lovers of conviviality is called to’ Clown Inn, where Coppin ‘amuses with his drolleries’ and ‘Phillips’ Nigger songs are capital’ all taking place in a ‘crowded salon’. In fact, The Clown on Pitt St was a new pub and one of Coppin’s new business ventures. Billy Barlow was performed alongside the performer ‘Yankee Phillips’ doing ‘Clar de Kitchen’ and ‘Sittin on a Rail’, ‘Yankee’ being a common name of minstrel performers. Coppin himself also performed ‘negro impersonations’ (Waterhouse, 28), one comic type in his arsenal. Another was Jem Bags ‘an itinerant fiddler’ Mr A Beckett’s farce the Wandering Minstrel . This was haughtily reviewed in The Australian:  ‘As a graphic picture of a very low life his performance may claim applause, but a less palpable delineation of the vulgar attributes of the character would have been more acceptable.’ 

Coppin’s activity and the variety of performance venues he appeared in points to the rapidly growing performance culture in Sydney in the 1840s. It also illustrates the growth of the popular stage as being something distinct from high, or morally uplifting, culture. While in the 1820s, Sydney was small enough to warrant the appearance of low-class comedy and high-class Mozart on the same stage, by the 1840s the size of Sydney and the growing ‘birfurcation’ of culture into high and low (Waterhouse, 26 ) meant the development of colonial versions of English music hall, with Sydney publicans advertising ‘free and easys’ in their hotels – local versions of the music hall.

​

References

Richard Waterhouse, From Minstrel Show to Vaudeville: the Australian popular stage 1788-1914 (Sydney: NSW University Press, 1990)

Lyrics - Billy Barlow ('Sydney' and 'Maitland' Versions)

When I was at home I was down on my luck,
And I yearnt a poor living by drawing a truck ;
But old aunt died and left me a thousand Oh, oh, '
I'll start on my travels,' said Billy Barlow.
Oh dear, lackaday, oh; So off to Australia came Billy Barlow.

​

When to Sydney I got, there a merchant I met,
Who said he could teach me a fortune to get ;
He'd cattle and sheep past the colony's bounds,
Which he sold with the station for my thousand pounds.
Oh dear, lackaday, oh, He gammon'd the cash out of Billy Barlow.

​

When the bargain was struck, and the money was paid,
He said, 'My dear fellow, your fortune is made;
I can furnish supplies for the station, you know,
And your bill is sufficient, good Mr. Barlow.'
Oh dear, lackaday, oh, A gentleman settler was Billy Barlow.

​

So I got my supplies, and I gave him my bill,
And for New England started, my pockets to fill;
But by bushrangers met, with my traps they made free,
Took my horse, and left Billy bailed up to a tree.
Oh dear, lackaday, oh, I shall die of starvation, thought Billy Barlow.

​

At last I got loose, and I walked on my way;
A constable came up, and to me did say,
'Are you free?' Says I 'Yes, to be sure, don't you know?"
And I handed my card, 'Mr. William Barlow.'
Oh dear, lackaday, oh, He said 'That's all gammon' to Billy Barlow.

​

Then he put on the handcuffs, and brought me away
Right back down to Maitland, before Mr. Day;
When I said I was free, why the J.P. replied,
'I must send you down to be i-dentified.'
Oh dear, lackaday oh, So to Sydney once more went poor Billy Barlow.

​

They at last let me go, and I then did repair

For my station once more, and at length I got there;

But a few days before the blacks, you must know,

Had spear'd all the cattle of Billy Barlow.

Oh dear, lackaday, oh, It's a beautiful country, said Billy Barlow.

And for nine months before no rain there had been,
So the devil a blade of grass could be seen;
And one third of my wethers the scab they had got,
And the other two-thirds had just died of the rot.
Oh dear, lackaday, oh, I shall soon be a settler, said Billy Barlow.

​

Then once more I got free, but in poverty's toil;
I've no 'cattle for salting,' no 'sheep for to boil;'
I can't get a job — tho' to any I'd stoop,
If 'twas only the making of 'portable soup.'
Oh dear, lackaday, oh, Pray give some employment to Billy Barlow.

​

But there's still ' a spec' left may set me on my stumps,
If a wife I could get with a few of the dumps;
So if any lass here has 'ten thousand,' or so,
She can just drop a line addressed 'Mr. Barlow.'
Oh dear, lackaday, oh, The dear angel shall be 'Mrs. William Barlow.'

​

As I walked along George st this ere day
The people all look’d and some on em did say
Now that ere young chap he don’t go so slow
I guess not, says a lady, that’s Billy Barlow
Oh dear…

​

The next prince or princess they’ll name after me
There’s a line in perspective we most on us see
So the name they will on the next young’un bestow
Will be Albert Augustus Sam Billy Barlow

​

I have hit on an excellent plan
To set up for the Legislation as soon as I can
So give me your votes and I very well know
You could not choose better than Billy Barlow
Oh dear

​

Ladies and gents I must bid you goodnight
For from Governor Gipps I’ve had an invite
To meet him at supper in a house you well know
His carriage is waiting for Billy Barlow
Oh dear…