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EVERY APRIL THE LIONS CLUB OF BUNDARRA HOLDS ITS ANNUAL GOAT AND YABBY RACES, TO RAISE FUNDS FOR PROJECTS WITHIN THE COMMUNITY

Here is a little on the history of goat carts for enthusiasts.

The term billycart is an Australian variation of the English goat cart which, like the dog cart, was originally an 18th and 19th century form of animal propelled baby carriage. A later development - the mail cart - was a two wheeled vehicle based upon the postal delivery cart but designed to be pulled by children as a play thing. The British firm Simpson, Fawcett and Co advertised these in 1870 emphasising their exercise value. Harnessed goats were also used in a variation of this two wheeled cart - again using the term goat cart or 'go-cart'. These could still be seen providing rides on English beaches in the 1930s. The mail cart, which could hold a young child, was also a precursor to the modern pram (Jack Hampshire, 'Prams, Mail Carts and Bassinets', 1980, pp.24,34).
Australian 'billycarts' were used as early as the 1880s. In his 1952 memoir, Sydney bookseller James Tyrrell remembered as a boy using a 'billycart', or what was probably a form of mailcart cart/goat cart without the goat, to deliver books for Angus and Robertson (J.R Tyrrell, 'Old Books, old friends, old Sydney'). The carts used at this stage were either literally drawn by a billygoat - hence the Australian name 'billycart'- or small two wheeled hand carts for which the name billycart had already become a generic term.

Anthony Hordern and Sons Ltd was advertising billycarts in the 1920s - these were essentially the two wheeled mailcarts of the late 19th century. However it was around this time or a little later that the 'modern' billycart developed as a fruit box with wheels or the more sophisticated H-shaped frame with rope controlled steering. These were probably home-made versions of commercially produced - and hence relatively expensive - pedal cars, trolley cars or flivvers (a 3 wheeled version of the hand-propelled trolley car). In the absence of pedals or hand cranks, these were pushed or ridden down hill.

Commercial variations of the home-made 'fruit box' billy cart appeared by the late 1960s, early 1970s - Raleigh produced a commercial billy cart in the 1970s called a 'Hi Speed Billy Cart Rail'. The term 'go-cart' now tends to refer to a motorised cart.

Click on this link to download a pdf on how to build a goat cart

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