Timeline of the flag of Australia

The following is a timeline of the flag of Australia.

• 3 September 1901 – The winning entry in the 1901 Federal Flag Design Competition is announced, and the Australian flag is flown for the first time at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne. In the same week it was also flown at the Melbourne show.
• 16 September 1901 – The Australian flag is formally raised at Townsville, Queensland in the presence of the Governor-General of Australia, John Hope, 7th Earl of Hopetoun
• 1902 – King Edward VII approved the Australian flag design as standardised by the British admiralty.
• 20 February 1903 – The design of the Australian flag appears in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette.
• 1 July to 23 November 1904 – The Australian flag flies at the Olympic Games in St Louis, Missouri, where the Australian team consists of a single competitor.
• 27 April to 31 October 1908 – The Australian flag is raised at the Olympic games in London in honour of Australia's first gold medal, which was for Rugby Union.
• December 1908 – Australian Army Military Order No 58/08 directs that the "Australian [Blue] Ensign" is to replace the Union Jack at all military establishments (stations).
• 19 December 1908 – The governor-general signs a proclamation increasing the number of points on the Commonwealth Star from six to seven.
• 22 May 1909 – Notice of the alteration in the design of the Australian flag appears in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette.
• 1911 – The Royal Australian Navy is formed and it is directed that the British white ensign be flown at the stern and the Australian flag at the jackstaff. In the same year, it was adopted as the saluting flag of the Australian army at all reviews and ceremonial parades (M.O.135), with the Union Jack being reserved for "all occasions when a representative of His Majesty the King reviews the Commonwealth forces" (M.O.391).

• 25 December 1912 – Frank Wild, part of Sir Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition 1911–14, raises the Australian flag upon formally taking possession of Queen Mary Land (now part of Australian Antarctic Territory) in the name of King George V and the Commonwealth of Australia.
• 12 March 1913 – The Australian flag flies for the dedication of Australia's capital city Canberra.
• 6 August 1914 – The Australian flag is associated with an act of war for the first time as it flies over the fort at Queenscliff, Victoria when the artillery battery opens fire to prevent the German steamer SS Pfalz from leaving port. This was the first British Empire shot of the First World War.
• 9 November 1914 – HMAS Sydney flies the Australian flag as a battle ensign from the mainmast during her famous victory over the German warship, SMS Emden, in the Battle of Cocos.
• 20 September 1917 – During the Allied victory in the Battle of Polygon Wood in Belgium, Lieutenant A.V.L. Hull, who was later killed in action, plants the Australian flag on an enemy pillbox. A depiction of this event was subsequently featured on a popular postcard sold to raise funds for wounded soldiers.
• 8 August 1918 – General Sir John Monash advised the governor-general that Australian troops in France had overrun the German lines and raised the Australian flag after liberating Harbonnières. General William Birdwood had dispatched a flag (now on display at the Australian War Memorial) to the 15th Infantry brigade with orders that it be flown over Harbonnières an honour that the commander of the 59th battalion bestowed on the first man to reach the objective, 22-year-old Gallipoli veteran Private Ernest Forty.
• 1928 – Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith takes three Australian flags aboard his aircraft, the Southern Cross, during the first flight to cross the Tasman Sea to New Zealand. These flags were subsequently given to the Sydney Hospital.
• 23 March 1934 – A technical drawing of the Australian flag is published in Commonwealth Government Gazette No 18.
• 19 July 1940 – HMAS Sydney II flies the Australian flag as a battle ensign during her victory over the Italian navy cruiser, Bartolomeo Colleoni.
• 15 March 1941 – Prime Minister Robert Menzies issues a media release recommending that the general public flies the predominantly blue Australian flag on land and the Australian Red Ensign at sea.
• 19 February 1942 – The Australian flag that was flying outside the residence of the Administrator of the Northern Territory becomes the first flag to come under enemy fire on Australian soil when it is riddled with bullet holes during a Japanese air raid. Now on display at the Australian War Memorial, it was featured alongside the Australian flags that flew at Villers-Bretonneux in 1917 and by HMAS Sydney II when it sank the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni in the Mediterranean in 1940.
• November 1942 – The Australian flag is raised as the Allies retake Kokoda in New Guinea.
• 25 November 1943 – Sergeant Tom Derrick hoists the Australian flag from a shell-torn tree at Mount Sattelberg, New Guinea, after his action where he destroyed ten enemy machine-gun posts for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross for valour.
• 12 September 1945 – The first flag to fly at the liberation of Singapore was an Australian flag secretly made in a prisoner of war camp. Another Australian flag that was raised at this time is now on display at the headquarters of the Returned and Services League in Canberra in a frame bearing a plaque that reads: "This important artefact was concealed in Changi Prison by Captain Strawbridge MBE, from 1942-1945. It was raised over the gates of the prison, the day of formal liberation in September 1945". These are among a number of Australian flags made from scavenged material by Australian prisoners of war held at various enemy camps, some of which are held by the Australian War Memorial.
• 24 February 1947 – Prime Minister Ben Chifley issues a statement encouraging more general and widespread use of the Australian flag.
• June 1947 – Howard Beale MP writes a letter to flag manufacturers requesting that produce the predominantly blue Australian flag instead of the red ensign (except for use afloat).
• 1951 – The Australian government inaugurates the tradition of presenting the Australian flag to all public schools.
• 2 December 1953 – The Australian parliament passes the Flags Act of 1953. The Australian flag replaces the Union Jack in the number one position in the order of precedence, with its official title being the "Australian National Flag".
• 14 February 1954 – Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II personally signed the Flags Act (Amended) No 1 of 1954 into law, which was the first occasion that federal legislation was reserved for royal assent by a reigning monarch.
• 1963 – Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies authorises the permanent flying of the Australian National Flag over the capital, illuminated at night.
• 1 March 1967 – The Australian White Ensign was adopted as the distinguishing flag for the Royal Australian Navy, to be "worn" (flown) in addition to the Australian National Flag.
• 24 March 1981 – The Flags Amendment Act 1981 describes the Australian National Flag as a blue flag consisting of the Southern Cross, Commonwealth Star and Union Jack.
• 3 October 1987 – Five hundred Australian National Flags are on display in the "Welcome Home" march in Sydney held in honour of Australia's Vietnam War veterans. The flags commemorate the number of Australian service personnel who lost their lives in the conflict.
• 28 August 1996 – The governor-general, Sir William Deane, proclaims 3 September as "Australian National Flag Day" to commemorate the day in 1901 on which the Australian National Flag was first flown.
• 24 March 1998 – Flag Amendment Bill amends the Flags Act 1953 to provide for a popular vote concerning any proposed changes to the Australian National Flag.
• 11 April 2000 – Alec Campbell, the last surviving Gallipoli veteran, hands over an Australian National Flag to a serving member of the Australian Defence Force at a ceremony in Canberra. This flag is flown every year at the annual ANZAC Day ceremony held at ANZAC Cove in Gallipoli, Turkey on 25 April.
• 3 September 2001 – The centenary of the Australian National Flag was commemorated at ceremonies held across Australia. Prime Minister John Howard gave a speech at the Royal Exhibition Building at an event where the first raising of the Australian National Flag was re-enacted. Governor-General, Peter Hollingworth, held a flag-raising ceremony at Government House, Canberra in honour of the occasion.
• 20 September 2001 – The governor-general signs the Centenary Flag Warrant. The Centenary Flag was presented on 3 September 2001 to the prime minister by the Australian National Flag Association at the re-enactment of the first flying of the Australian National Flag at the Royal Exhibition Building. It is an Australian National Flag made of satin and inscribed with a special flag centenary message and was intended to by used at important national events in the future. It features an embellishment designed to represent the crimson thread of kinship, symbolically linking past and current generations to future generations of Australians.

See also

• Flags Act 1953

Bibliography

• Australian Flags (3rd ed.). Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. 2006. ISBN 0-642-47134-7.
• Cayley, Frank (1966). Flag of Stars. Adelaide: Rigby. ISBN 978-9-04-010451-0.
• Goodman, Rupert (1998). Don't change our flag: An exposure of false and misleading arguments. Tingalpa: Boolorong Press.
• Kwan, Elizabeth (2006). Flag and Nation: Australians and their National Flags since 1901. Sydney: University of New South Wales. ISBN 0-86840-567-1.
• Maitland, Gordon (2015). The story of Australia's flags: Our flags, standards, guidons, colours, banners, battle honours and ensigns. Pymble: Playbill Printworks. ISBN 9780992515416.
• Odgers, George (1989). Navy Australia: An Illustrated History. Frenchs Forest: Child and Associates.