THE AUSTRALIAN FLAG

One of the treasures in our W.A Scout Museum is an Australian flag. This flag is from the 1908-1912 period.

Did you know that a worldwide competition was held after the Commonwealth was formed, to choose a design for a national flag and that a Western Australian lady was one of the winners? This design consisted of the Union Jack in the upper hoist canton, a six-point star in the centre below it and the five stars of the Southern Cross in the fly.

At the time these five stars all had a different number of points, according to their brightness in the sky, starting with Alpha with nine, Beta with eight, Gamma with seven, Delta with six and Epsilon with five points. There were two background colours chosen: - one blue and the other red.

These two flags were made official in 1903, but, for some unknown reason, it was ruled that the “Blue Ensign” was to be flown only by the Government and its institutions, and the general public were only allowed to fly the Red flag. This practice continued until Queen Elizabeth II visited Australia in 1954, and gave all Australians the right to fly the Blue flag.

In 1908 a seventh point was added to the Federal Star, to represent the six states of Australia, plus the territories under Australian control. Our Flag remained like this until 1912, when the manufacturers reported that it was becoming uneconomical to produce, because of the different sizes and numbers of points on the stars, so our Flag was finally changed to what it is today.