In teaching these topics we needed to identify a ‘time and place’ that could be linked appropiately to the two syllabuses.
We decided on the Federation of Australia - 1901
Following Federation as a new nation (the Commonwealth of Australia) on 1st January, 1901 the Commonwealth Government announced a Federal Flag design competition on 29th April, 1901. The review of Review for Australiasia, a Melbourne journal, had initiated an Australian flag competition in 1900, a unique event at the time. It was agreed that the entries received by this journal would be accepted in the Government’s competition. The contest attracted 32,823 entries from men, women and children. An expert panel of judges assessed the entries using guidelines which included history, heraldry, distinctiveness, utility and cost of manufacture.
On 3rd September, 1901, a public ceremony was held at the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, where Lady Hopetoun, wife of the Governor-General, opened a display of the entries in the competition. The Prime Minister of Australia, Sir Edmund Barton, announced that five entrants, who had submitted similar designs, were to share the honour of being declared the designers of Australia’s own flag. They were: Ivor Evans, a fourteen-year-old schoolboy from Melbourne; Leslie John Hawkins, a teenager apprenticed to a Sydney optician; Egbert John Nuttall, a Melbourne architect; Annie Dorrington, an artist from Perth; and William Stevens, a ship’s officer from Auckland, New Zealand.
In 1996 the Governor-General, Sir William Deane, proclaimed 3rd September as Australian National Flag Day, to commemorate the day in 1901 on which our national flag of "Stars and Crosses" was first flown. It is the right and privilege of every Australian to fly the Australian National Flag.
Flags before Federation
Prior to Federation on 1 January 1901, the official flag of the Australian Colonies was the flag of Great Britain the 'Union Jack'. However, the British colonial Naval Defence Act 1865 authorised the establishment of naval defence forces by the colonies and specified that such naval vessels should fly a Blue ensign with 'the seal or badge of the colony in the fly thereof'. Such flags were designed and adopted by the colonies. The flags of the Australian colonies date from 1876 (New South Wales and Queensland), 1877 (Victoria) and 1895 (Tasmania and Western Australia). South Australia did not adopt a flag until 1904. Over time, use of these flags was extended beyond mere display on naval vessels.
