Eureka - A Tale of Two Flags

The original 1854 Flag of the Southern Cross, otherwise known as the “Eureka Flag”, hangs proudly in the Art Gallery of Ballarat and will relocate to the new Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka when it opens early next year.

But there is another more recent copy of the flag that hangs proudly In Ballarat and it’s above the stage in the main hall of the Ballarat Trades Hall building. When I say more recent, this version of the “Eureka Flag” was made in the early 1940s and it has an interesting history.

While the “Eureka Flag” is today one of the most recognisable icons of Australian history, and most Australians would know the flag even if they know little about the events which surrounded its creation, this wasn’t always so.

While there is absolutely no doubt that the flag that hangs at the Art Gallery of Ballarat is the flag that was first raised at Bakery Hill on November 29, 1854 and was torn down by troopers at the Eureka Stockade on the morning of December 3, 1854, we must remember that the flag has only been on continuous public display since 1973.  

         Charles A. Doudiet: 'Swearing allegiance to the Southern Cross',
Art Gallery of Ballarat

After the defeat of the miners at the Stockade, the flag was used as evidence in the subsequent treason trials in 1855. When the rebel miners were acquitted, the flag was handed over to the Trooper who had taken the flag after the battle and it remained with his family until it was loaned to the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery in the 1890s.

When asked in 1877 to confirm that the flag then held by the Trooper’s family was the original flag of Eureka, the miners’ leader, Peter Lalor, said he believed it was the right one, but suggested they consult someone whose memory was more accurate than his.

It is therefore not surprising that many early attempts at representing the flag were less than successful. The version on the cover of Carboni’s 1855 account of the Eureka Uprising although incorporating the five stars and the cross, is highly stylised. The version on the cover of Withers’s 1870 History of Ballarat is closer to the mark, but still differs from the original.

Eureka Stockade, Ealing Studios, 1949

Even as recently as 1949, the makers of the Chips Rafferty film, Eureka Stockade, got the flag completely wrong; opting to use the stars of the Southern Cross as they appear on the present Australian Flag. Whether this was out of ignorance or deliberately done for dramatic effect in order to suggest that the Australian Flag was born at Eureka, I do not know.

After the Art Gallery assumed custodianship of the original flag and for much of the next 70 years it was kept in a drawer and only shown to people on request.  It was not until Eureka Day on December 3, 1973 and in the presence of then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, that the flag was unveiled and placed on permanent public display at the Ballarat Gallery.

I suppose we should credit the Builder’s Labourers Federation throughout the 1970s with having done the most to promote awareness of the “Eureka Flag”.  While groups from across the political and ideological spectrum have subsequently made use of the image of the flag, it has been the Labour Movement that has most firmly staked its claim to be the keepers of the spirit of Eureka.

The “Eureka Flag” was reportedly raised by striking shearers at Barcaldine in 1891, although sadly this event was not captured photographically. It would be interesting to know how the flag appeared. Was its design based closely on the original or, as I suspect more likely, one of the later attempts at interpreting its appearance without direct reference to the original?

Confusion over the details of the flag is one thing, but it is surprising that even in Ballarat as recently as the 1940s, the flag itself was unfamiliar to many people.

In the early 1940s Tom Ellis, the caretaker at the Ballarat Trades Hall made a version of the “Eureka Flag” to be flown over the Trades Hall building on Eureka Day and to be carried in union marches. Not an exact replica of the original flag, it is different in that the lines of the crosses extend to the edges of the flag, whereas in the original they stop at the stars.  I suspect Mr Ellis, even if he had seen the original at the Art Gallery, was possibly influenced by the depiction of the flag on the cover of Withers’ book.

This flag was mounted on a staff on the Trades Hall building for the Eureka Anniversary on December 3, 1942. According to reports in the Ballarat Courier newspaper many local residents were mystified about the significance of the blue and white flag and this caused a flood of enquiries from the public. The Courier reported that “it (seems) strange that the town in which Eureka made a name for Australia and its efforts to get freedom from control for the ordinary man, did not recognise the flag that flew while the first move for freedom was fought out against big odds”.

The Trades Hall Flag, which was used in union marches during the 1940s and 1950s, had been all but forgotten until it surfaced again in 1981. Apparently Tom Ellis boarded with a family in Ballarat East and, after his death, the flag along with his other effects was kept in storage in a garage at the house.

It was in early 1981, while I was working as Electorate Officer to the then Federal Member for Ballarat, John Mildren, that an elderly member of the family came into the Electorate Office with the Trades Hall Flag. Rather than throwing it out, he was hoping someone would be interested enough to want to keep it. He didn’t give his name, but we talked about the provenance of the flag and its link to Eureka and the history of the Labour Movement in Ballarat - subjects that were of great interest to me.

At that time no one else seemed greatly interested, so I undertook to be custodian of the flag and to look after it in the hope that the Trades Hall would one day be able to conserve and display the flag.

I was also keen to firmly establish the provenance of the flag and was able to show it to Alan (Beau) Williams, who had been Secretary of the Ballarat Trades Hall from 1955 to 1975.  He confirmed that the Caretaker, Tom Ellis, had indeed been responsible for making the flag and that it was flown over the Trades Hall and used in marches.

1n 1994, I was involved in helping to organise an exhibition of artworks, artefacts and memorabilia that the Ballarat Art Gallery was mounting to commemorate the 140^th Anniversary of Eureka. With the permission of then Secretary of the Ballarat Trades Hall, Graeme Shearer, we included the Trades Hall Flag in the exhibition, which was opened at Ballarat by Gough Whitlam and also toured to other Australian regional galleries. Mr Whitlam was photographed by the Ballarat Courier in front of the Trades Hall Flag. 

Gough Whitlam launching the Eureka 140 Exhibition
- Art Gallery of Ballarat 1994

It was several years later in 2001 that Graeme Shearer, with financial support organised by Dean Mighel of the Electrical Trades Union, was able finally to arrange for the flag to undergo conservation and to be mounted for display.

On Wednesday July 11, 2001, following a ceremony to mark the refurbishment of the Galloway Eight Hour Day Monument in Sturt Street Ballarat, the Trades Hall Eureka Flag was unveiled by the then President of the Trades Hall Council, Rhonda Young, at a function in the Main Hall of the Camp Street building.

Graeme Shearer at the unveiling of the restored Trades Hall Eureka Flag  - 2001

Unless the “Eureka Flag” of the striking shearers at Barcaldine turns up, I venture to say that this now seventy-year-old flag is most likely the oldest surviving replica of the Flag of the Southern Cross.