One of the most recognisable national flags has to be the iconic Australian flag which displays the Union Jack along with the Commonwealth Star and the Southern Cross on a blue field. So, when was the Union Jack first seen on Australian soil?
Lieutenant James Cook (a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy) landed at Botany Bay on the 29th April 1770 and used the flag to represent the British Empire (this was the first Union Jack introduced in 1606 which did not include the cross of St Patrick), and was again used during the European settlement of the country on the 26th January 1788. There were six British colonies and each had its own flag based on the Union flag.
The first flag to use the Southern Cross (seen on today’s Australia flag) was the Australasian Anti-Transportation League flag – designed by Reverend John West in 1849. Australasian Anti-Transportation League opposed penal transportation (British sending convicts to Australia).
Once the Europeans became more settled in the country during the 19th century two attempts were made to introduce an original national flag. The first attempt was named the National Colonial Flag created in 1823–1824 by Captains John Nicholson and John Bingle. The flag was very similar to the current white ensign of the Royal Navy, with the addition of four eight pointed stars on each limb of the red cross. A more popular national flag of the period was the 1831 Australian Federation Flag, also designed by Nicholson. This flag was very similar the Colonial flag with one difference – the red cross was changed to blue. The flag became more popular during the second half of the 19th century when the calls for a federation were growing stronger.
As the Federation of Australia approached (the joining of the six British colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia) a joint competition run by the new Commonwealth Government and the Melbourne Herald was held for the public to design a new flag of Australia. There was a whopping 32,823 entries, with five very similar entries declared as the winners. The differences to the current flag were the six-pointed Commonwealth Star, while the components stars in the Southern Cross had different numbers of points, with more if the real star was brighter. This led to five stars of nine, eight, seven, six and five points respectively. In 1903 the flag went through a slight change when all the stars of the Southern Cross bar the smallest were changed to seven-pointed. The flag is infamous for being approved by King Edward VII.
The final change to the flag saw the Commonwealth Star changing to a seven-pointed version on the 23rd February 1908.The seven points represent the six colonies plus an extra point to represent the colonies collectively.
The use of the Southern Cross constellation depicts Australia’s geographical position.
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