Last modified: 2025-08-23 by ian macdonald
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During the Jubilee of Federation in 1951, the Prime
Minister's Department spent considerable effort trying to find historic
documents and information concerning the Australian Blue Ensign which was even
then regarded by them as the Australian National Flag. This would seem
straightforward as they held the relevant files. They also enlisted the help of
various entities within Australia to find any information they did not have on
file, and the help of the Imperial authorities in lengthy searches for missing
documents in the United Kingdom. Much to their frustration they found that many
documents, artifacts and other information simply did not exist. In some cases
it probably never did. This is what was found to be missing in 1951, and is even
now not publicly available.
There appears to be no images of the designs submitted by the five competition winners, Annie
Dorrington (Ahasuerus 3935), William Stevens (Zoe 4034), Leslie Hawkins (Elpis 4192), Egbert
Nuttall (Six-pointed Star 4581) and Ivor Evans (Simplicity 414). By 1951 none of the surviving
three winners nor families of the deceased two, had retained any images of their winning competition
entries.
It is not clear why the British artworks of the flags were so crude, undimensioned,
and of a visibly different design to the formalised Australian design. The key
to understanding this more than thirty-year confusion relies upon finding the
'Design A' sketch sent through the Governor-General's Office to London in 1902.
However the Imperial authorities in 1951 were unable to locate it. And of course
we may well ask, who in Australia produced these inaccurate drawings that it
seems were effectively caricatures of the Australian flags with no dimensions
supplied, and why they were content to do this. Mr E Wilson Dobbs is associated with the design of the
seven-point Commonwealth Star on the Coat of Arms and the Australian flags in
1908. However he also restored or continued the 1901 type of Southern Cross to
the flags and copies of his flag drawing were printed for issue by the
Department of External Affairs to public enquirers. Around 1911 these drawings
were replaced by a new one by Mr Dobbs depicting the Australian flags as they
are today (thought to be the drawing included in the 1934 Gazette notification).
To date no copies of Mr Wilson Dobbs' 1908-1911 drawing have been located
although accurate small-scale colour plates of it have been found. In the 1980s an assertion emerged that in 1954, Prime
Minister Robert Menzies may have arbitrarily selected the Australian Blue Ensign
to be the Australian National Flag instead of the Australian Red Ensign due to
his strongly-held anti-communism views, and presumably his opposition to a mainly-red
national flag. Ever since, supporters of replacing the current Australian
National Flag with a new national flag have held to this assertion. It could
even be strengthened by noting the fact that members of the
communist-infiltrated maritime unions of the time served under this flag. As far
as I know, no-one has seriously disputed this claim. It is based on a comment in
Mr Menzies' memoirs published in 1967, Afternoon Light: Some Memoirs of Men
and Events that; 'For us, the maps of the world were patterned with great
areas of red, at a time when red was a respectable colour'. This is tenuous
evidence. What is known is that the lengthy process of making the blue flag into
the Australian National Flag had actually begun in early 1937 with an enquiry to
the Imperial authorities, well before Mr Menzies had become Prime Minister for
the first time. However, the action to achieve this was deferred due to the war. Although Mr Menzies as the responsible Minister clearly
played a part in the flag process in 1939-1941 and in 1949-1954, there is no
documentary nor anecdotal evidence that he placed any undue pressure on
officials working in the Prime Minister's Department, to make the Ensign into
the Australian National Flag. Several mentions of 'submitting it to the Prime
Minister' and 'Awaiting his decision' appear to be references to normal
processes in departmental officials dealing with their relevant minister. In
fact when the first press release inviting more general flying of the blue flag
was issued under Mr Menzies' name on 15 March 1941, this was halfway through his
several-month visit to wartime London! No documents have been located that discuss the Australian
Red Ensign as a potential Australian National Flag, despite its widespread
community use as a quasi-national flag well into the 1960s. About all that
officials of the Prime Minister's Department said about the role of the
Australian Red Ensign was that it was clearly a maritime flag and that its use
on land was inappropriate except to represent the merchant service on special
occasions.
Yet the Commonwealth government had suggested public flying
of the Australian Red Ensign on land in their periodically issued flag-flying
information to the State Premiers from January 1924. Although they had begun to
play this down from 1941, it was only after the Flags Act 1953 took effect that
public flying of the blue flag began to increase significantly in place of the
red flag and the Union Flag. The lack of any 'kind words' relating to ending of
the red flag's widespread public land-use and what amounted to banishing to sea
the 'virile' flag that many Australians had been devoted to for at least three
decades, appears to have created a degree of community resentment that has not
only continued ever since, but in recent times seems to be strengthening. Reference source
Jeff Thomson, 9 February 2022
The 1901 Federal Flag Competition Entries
Jeff Thomson, 9 February 2022
The Royal Exhibition Building Flag
Although much has been written about the 18 ft x 36 ft blue flag flown over the Royal Exhibition
Building from 3 September 1901, we don't know who designed it, how it come about (for example, was
it commissioned or was it loaned or donated), who made it up, and what happened to it.
Jeff Thomson, 9 February 2022
The 1902 Southern Cross Design Change
No information has been found to indicate who changed three of the Southern Cross stars to seven
star-points in 1902, why they did it, by what authority they did it, and why they made the unusual
choice of seven star-points. But there is absolutely no evidence to support the allegation made in
the government-issued 'Australian Flags' booklet of 1998 (page 16) that the British Admiralty did so.
In fact in the next edition published in 2006, the description of the Southern Cross retained the
same wording except for deleting 'by the British Admiralty'.
Jeff Thomson, 9 February 2022The Official 1903
Flags (British)
Jeff Thomson, 9 February 2022
The E Wilson Dobbs 1908 Flag Design Drawing
Jeff Thomson, 9 February 2022The Blue Ensign as Australian National Flag
Jeff Thomson, 9 February 2022
The Red Ensign as Australian National Flag?
Jeff Thomson, 9 February 2022
Most of the lost history aspects discussed on this page are taken from the National Archives Item ID 801842 which contains 141 very interesting pages.
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=801842