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Lionel Rose was the first Aboriginal Australian of the Year.
The first Prime Minister of Australia was the Honourable Sir Edmund Barton in 1901.
Australia is one of the most urbanised and coast-dwelling populations in the world. More than 80 per cent of Australians live within 100 kilometres of the coast.
Australia's national colours of green and gold are those of the Golden Wattle tree in flower.
A worldwide competition to design the Australian flag attracted 32,823 entries in 1901. There were 5 winners who shared the 200 pound prize money.
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The Australian Natives Association (ANA) was the first Australian Friendly Society and its motto was Advance Australia. The group, which had particular influence in the period between the 1890s to around 1914, had strong nationalistic aspirations and its members included Edmund Barton (who became our first Prime Minister), Alfred Deakin (Australia's second Prime Minister) and Sir Isaac Isaacs (our first Australian-born Governor-General).
The ANA grew rapidly and branches were formed across Victoria and in all states as well as a branch in London. By the 1880s, the group was making a nation-wide impact.
The ANA supported many issues including afforestation, an Australian-made goods policy, water conservation, Aboriginal welfare, the celebration of proper and meaningful citizenship ceremonies, following the increased levels of migration after World War II, and the adoption of the wattle as the national floral emblem (accepted in 1912). However, some of their strongest support was for Federation and a united Commonwealth (along with the Federation League), the celebration of a unified national day and the naming of that day Australia Day.
The Australian Natives' Association's fete, including musical and elocution competitions, Exhibition Building, Melbourne, Foundation Day 1899. Source: Australian Unity Limited Archives Melbourne
Celebrations surrounding the inauguration of the new Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January in Sydney and at the opening of its first Federal Parliament on 9 May in Melbourne, at the Royal Exhibition Building, overshadowed Anniversary Day in 1901. The Federal Parliament continued to sit in Melbourne until 1927.
Federation had been a remarkable political achievement. Colonies had jostled to protect their interests: New South Wales rivalling Victoria; and the smaller states fearing the larger states' combined political power. Led by the ANA in Victoria and the Australasian Federation League in New South Wales, the colonies chose to be self-governing within the British Empire, not independent outside it. They were Australian, but they were also British. As Parkes had reminded colonial representatives in Melbourne in 1890, 'The crimson thread of kinship runs through us all'. They belonged together because they shared not only a continent but also a British background. As a small white population of almost four million in a large continent far from Britain, Australians depended on the Royal Navy.
Schools joined in celebrating federation by raising the Union Jack, the flag of Britain and its Empire introduced into their schoolyards for the occasion, and the focus of subsequent school ceremonies. Conservative Australian and state governments in 1905 reinforced Britain’s role by instituting Empire Day, 24 May, the birthday of the late Queen Victoria, to reassure those who feared that federation would weaken the ties of subsequent generations of Australians to Britain.
The national symbols, flags and coat of arms, representing the Commonwealth were strongly British. The two shipping ensigns (blue for government ships, red for merchant ships in the British imperial tradition) honoured the national flag, the Union Jack, with the Southern Cross in the fly and the Commonwealth Star beneath the Jack representing the states and territories.
The two Australian shipping ensigns, modified and approved by the British Admiralty, were gazetted in 1903. Source: Ralph Kelly, Flags Australia
During World War I, 30 July 1915 became “Australia Day” although the ANA still held their Foundation Day event on 26 January. The July Australia Day was a way of raising funds for the war by drawing on Australians' pride in their soldiers' achievements at Gallipoli and on their growing confidence in being Australian (figures 12 and 13).
A gum (eucalyptus) leaf as a memento of 30 July 1915, designated Australia Day to raise funds for Australian troops. Source: J. Paul Robinson
Australian ensigns became more popular, though there was confusion about which one citizens were allowed to use: the blue (in British tradition the flag for government, not people) or the red? After the war the use of Australian ensigns continued to be controversial, unless they were accompanied by the national flag, the Union Jack. Australians' bitter division over conscription for overseas service during the war had made debate about their dual nationality and its symbols controversial.
The decision of the ANA annual conference in Victoria in March 1930 to name 26 January Australia Day was the beginning of its campaign to persuade Victorian and other Australian governments to observe that day as Australia Day 'with the prominent display of the Australian flag'. But further, the ANA wanted Australia Day to be celebrated on the same day, that is, on the Monday following the 26th, unless the 26th was a Monday. Success followed in Victoria in 1931, while some states persisted with 'Foundation Day' and New South Wales retained 'Anniversary Day'. But in 1935 the ANA president in Victoria was pleased to report that, with the support of the Prime Minister and the other ANA state boards of directors, for the first time the name of the day and the timing of the celebration were uniform throughout the country.
By 1931, in contrast to 1924, the Australian Natives' Association in Melbourne was promoting 26 January as Australia Day, using the Australian red ensign, the most commonly used Australian flag on land. Source: Australian Unity Limited Archives Melbourne
By 1938 Australians, still 98 per cent British in background, had, after almost one hundred years, found agreement on the name, timing and nature of the day's celebration they had come to share.
All six state Premiers were in Sydney, again very much the focus of the Australia Day celebrations. But Brisbane's Courier-Mail warned against seeing those celebrations as 'merely of local interest': 'Sydney has the pageantry, but the event it recalls and reconstructs is significant to all Australians. A nation was founded when Governor Phillip landed at Port Jackson. To that nation we all belong'. The heading for the editorial was 'A dream that came true'. That nation now had its own capital, Canberra (in the Australian Capital Territory, cut out of New South Wales in 1908) and a provisional Parliament House. The Northern Territory, controlled by the Federal Government from 1911, was to gain self-government in 1978.
The general public appears to have embraced the 150th anniversary in 1938 with great enthusiasm. There were many celebrations and events for the Sesquicentenary - picnics, balls, musical performances and fireworks.
A significant amount of memorabilia remains from the celebrations - invitations, pamphlets, program brochures, tourist leaflets from large regional towns and musical, art and literary competitions, indicating the number of events that took place. However, little in the way of permanent structures and reminders were created during 1938, unlike the 1988 Bicentenary.
The euphoria of the 150th anniversary celebrations was maintained as February 1938 saw the staging of the British Empire Games in Australia for the first time. Of the 70 events held in Sydney, Australia won 24, far ahead of her nearest rival Canada with 13.
However the meeting of Aborigines at the Australian Hall, Sydney on 'the 150th Anniversary of the Whitemen's seizure of our country' passed unanimously a resolution protesting at the white men's mistreatment of Aborigines since 1788 and appealing for new laws ensuring equality for Aborigines within the Australian community. Also endorsed was a list of ten points, suggesting ways of achieving full citizen status, for a deputation to take to a meeting with the Prime Minister on 31 January. Living conditions for Aboriginal people in south-eastern Australia had worsened as the economy deteriorated from the 1920s. Controlled by largely unsympathetic 'protectors', dependent on white charity, and without the right to vote, Aborigines struggled to improve their situation. They were out of sight of most Australians who, living in the capital cities, knew or understood little of their plight.
Aborigines outside the Australian Hall, Sydney, Australia Day, 1938. Source: Man (Syd.), March 1938, National Library of Australia.
The Australia Day Committee (Victoria) gratefully acknowledges the support of the Australia Day Council of New South Wales and the National Australia Day Council in compiling this history.
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