Last modified: 2025-10-11 by ian macdonald
Keywords: townsville flag |
Links: FOTW homepage |
search |
disclaimer and copyright |
write us |
mirrors
See also:
The Townsville flag of 1901 was an early impression of the then-new Commonwealth Blue Ensign, made up on short notice by local ship chandler and sailmaker William McKenzie. Along with a 14 September covering letter, he sent it to the Townsville Council for use in a public ceremony on 16 September 1901. Mr. McKenzie proposed that it be hoisted by 'the first Governor General of Australasia', Lord Hopetoun, as part of the festivities to be held during his Lordship's brief visit. This was accordingly done, and two photographs show a large crowd of people in attendance. All of this took place within the two weeks following the Federal Flag Competition in Melbourne.
https://stories.townsville.qld.gov.au/nodes/view/18955
https://stories.townsville.qld.gov.au/nodes/view/8507
https://stories.townsville.qld.gov.au/nodes/view/13479
According to the North Queensland Herald of 21 September 1901, the flag had an inscription on the 'luff' (heading). On one side the inscription said, 'The first Commonwealth flag hoisted by the first Governor-General of Australia, Lord Hopetoun.' On the other side it said 'Murdo Cameron, Mayor, September 16, 1901.' and also 'William McKenzie'. One of the 1901 photographs appears to show that the stars on the flag reflected the circulated image of the winning flag from the Federal Flag Competition of two weeks earlier, as shown in National Archives Item ID 33110263: page 5.
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=33110263
A full account of this flag and a subsequent jubilee re-enactment in September 1951 is in a thirteen-page paper in the 'Memoirs of the Queensland Museum - Cultural Heritage Series' published on-line on 31 May 2002. It can be found as a PDF file at 'Once a jolly flagman': the 1901 Townsville flag controversy - Culture 2 | Queensland Museum
There was a long-held belief in Townsville that this was the first ever raising of what would become the Australian National Flag. A bronze plaque on display in Townsville says '16 September 1951. This flagpole commemorates the raising, for the first time in Australia, of the Commonwealth Flag. The ceremony was performed in Townsville, by the first Governor-General of Australia, The Right Honourable, The Earl of Hopetoun, K.T., G.C.M.G., G.C.V.O., on 16th September 1901, when the design of the flag was first proclaimed'. The assertions that this was the first time that the Commonwealth Flag had been raised, and that the design had been proclaimed on this date, are incorrect. But how did these beliefs come about, and why were they still held fifty years after the event took place?
https://stories.townsville.qld.gov.au/nodes/view/13945
Again according to the North Queensland Herald of 21 September 1901, Lord Hopetoun's only words concerning the new flag that were recorded were, 'It has afforded me very great pleasure indeed to unfurl this grand new flag, and I feel highly honoured that the first time I have been present at its unfurling should have been in Townsville, the Queen City of the north.' This was simply a speech, and no proclamation by Lord Hopetoun relating to the Townsville flag has been found in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette.
It also seems that people who have read William McKenzie's letter of 14 September 1901 have mistaken a mark on it for a comma. The letter states in part '...the first Commonwealth Flag to be hoisted by the first Governor General of Australasia...' But the mark that looks like a comma results in '...the first Commonwealth Flag, to be hoisted by the first Governor General of Australasia...' The first sentence as written by William McKenzie conveys that it was the first hoisting (or unfurling) of a Commonwealth Flag by the first Governor-General. But with the false comma added, the sentence conveys that it was the very first hoisting of any Commonwealth flag at all. It was this second, mistaken interpretation that became established as fact.
https://stories.townsville.qld.gov.au/nodes/view/18955
In 1922 a worn, torn, modified and repaired flag purporting to be the one unfurled by Lord Hopetoun was gifted to the Royal Australian Historical Society (RAHS) in Sydney by the Townsville Council and received on 25 July 1922. The RAHS Secretary noticed that the flag had the seven-point Commonwealth Star rather than the expected six-point type. He wrote to the Townsville Town Clerk about this discrepancy, but the clerk was unable to provide any clarification. Nothing was written by either party about what the Southern Cross stars looked like, nor whether the dedicatory inscription was still on the luff (heading).
Twenty-nine years later, officers of Townsville Council requested the RAHS to return the flag so that a 1951 jubilee re-enactment ceremony could be held. At first the RAHS refused the request due to 'the dangers involved' which presumably related to the very poor condition of the flag, especially the hoist half. However, after some pressure they relented and sent the flag north by registered post. Upon its arrival in Townsville, it was found necessary to repair the flag yet again to make it flyable for even a short time. Some fragments from the flag left over after this repair are all that is known to remain of this flag. They are held in the Queensland Museum, according to the Queensland Museum paper.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/from-the-archives-1901-australia-s-new-flag-flies-for-the-first-time-20200901-p55rfh.html
A photograph of the flag flying in 1951 is quite clear and shows that the stars had the same number of star points as the present-day flag. The Southern Cross star positions were not very accurate as may be expected of a pre-war Commonwealth flag. But the Epsilon Star sat close to the fly outer edge, and the entire fly half had been replaced. All of the lower hoist and part of the Union canton had been newly replaced as well, to allow the flag to be flown as part of this ceremony. Thus, by 16 September 1951 little of the original flag remained, assuming that any part of this flag was William McKenzie's 1901 flag. https://stories.townsville.qld.gov.au/nodes/view/8410
Media coverage of the 1951 re-enactment took the attention of staff of the Prime Minister's Department, who immediately enquired into the flag. In a 1952 letter to a Mr. F G Phillips (who had examined the flag at the RAHS rooms, perhaps at the request of the PM's Dept), the Acting Secretary (not named) stated that although the 1901 vice-regal visit and flag raising may be of some historic interest, '...the flag in its present state cannot be regarded as having been flown on September 16th, 1901.' Mr. Phillips forwarded this opinion as a quote, in a letter to Townsville Council. Prime Minister's Department documents dealing with the flag can be found in the National Archives of Australia, Item ID 801842: pages 63, 97, 102-105, 116-118.
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=801842
According to the Queensland Museum paper, the flag remained in storage until the RAHS passed its museum collection to the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (later the Powerhouse Museum) in the early 1980s. It is not clear if this collection transfer included the Townsville flag, but a search for the flag requested by the Townsville Bulletin newspaper in 1995 failed to find it.
The Townsville Bulletin concluded that the flag was with the Powerhouse Museum, but in effect lost 'in the caverns of its storage area'. The Queensland Museum paper, which took a dismissive attitude towards the flag and its historic significance, believed that apart from the fragments held in the Queensland Museum, it was probably lost forever.
An on-line search of the Powerhouse Museum collection in August 2025 did not locate the flag although an 895 mm x 1920 mm replica flag numbered A8238 was found. This was one of a batch of ten consecutively numbered replica flags. The 2 June 1982 acquisition date and (inaccurate) details beneath the flag image raised a possibility that the replica had a connection to the lost Townsville flag. But contrary to the 1901-1908 date range that the replica is claimed to reflect, the image is of a current-design Australian National Flag, without the Townsville flag's unusual Epsilon Star position. So, there is no compelling evidence to link the A8238 replica to the Townsville flag and no reported sighting of the Townsville flag after Mr. Phillips examined it in 1952.
https://stories.townsville.qld.gov.au/nodes/view/8410
https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/196578
An unfortunate legacy of the questionable history of the Townsville flag is that it is often confused with the large flag flown over the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne on 3 September 1901. This was the first time that the Commonwealth Blue Ensign was publicly flown. The Age newspaper link above leads to a photograph captioned to imply that the flag shown was the Royal Exhibition Building one. Actually, it is the Townsville flag before the repairs were made to allow it to be briefly flown on 16 September 1951.
An interesting coincidence is that William McKenzie's 'inscribed luff' of his 1901 flag had a counterpart in the inscribed headband which is the defining feature of the 2001 Centenary Flag, Australia's Flag of State.
Jeff Thomson, 5 October 2025