page_title: Eureka Flag
section_title: Origin and symbolism
hierarchical_section_title: Eureka Flag / History / Origin and symbolism
caption_attribution_description: English: Captain Henry Ross, the Canadian designer of the Eureka Flag, flown during the Eureka Rebellion at Ballarat, Victoria, Australia in November 1854.
context_page_description: The Eureka Flag is the war flag flown at the battle of the Eureka Stockade that took place on 3 December 1854 at Ballarat in Victoria, Australia. An estimated crowd of over 10,000 people swore allegiance to the flag as a symbol of defiance at Bakery Hill on 29 November 1854. Over 30 miners were killed at the Eureka Stockade, along with six troopers and police. Some 125 miners were arrested and many others badly wounded.
  The field is Prussian blue measuring 260 cm × 400 cm and made from fine woollen fabric. The horizontal cross is 37 cm wide and the vertical cross 36 cm wide. The central star is slightly larger than the others being 65 cm tall from point to point and the other stars 60 cm. The white stars are made from fine cotton lawn and the off-white cross from cotton twill.
  It is listed as an object of significance on the Victorian Heritage Register and was designated as a Victorian icon by the National Trust in 2006.
context_section_description: According to one popular tradition the flag design is credited to a Canadian member of the Ballarat Reform League, 'Captain' Henry Ross of Toronto. In 1885, John Wilson, who was employed by the Victorian Works Department at Ballarat as a foreman, made the claim that he had originally conceptualised the Eureka flag after becoming sympathetic to the rebel cause. He then recalls that it was constructed from bunting by a tarpaulin maker. A. W. Crowe recounted in 1893 that "it was Ross who gave the order for the insurgents' flag at Darton and Walker's." Crowe's story is confirmed in as far as there were advertisements that appeared in the Ballarat Times dating from October–November 1854 for Darton and Walker, manufacturers of tents, tarpaulin and flags, situated at the Gravel Pits. There is also another legend where the flag was sewn by three local women - Anastasia Withers, Anne Duke and Anastasia Hayes. The stars are made of a delicate material which is consistent with the story they were made out of their petticoats and the "blue woollen material certainly bears a marked resemblance to the standard dressmaker's length of material for making up one of the voluminous dresses of the 1850s." The earliest mention of a flag was the report of a meeting held on 23 October 1854 to discuss indemnifying Andrew McIntyre and Thomas Fletcher who had both been arrested. The article published in The Herald, 7 November 1854 edition, also states that: "Mr. Kennedy suggested that a tall flag pole should be erected on some conspicuous site, the hoisting of the diggers' flag on which should be the signal for calling toge-ther a meeting on any subject which might require immediate consideration."
  Frank Cayley in his seminal Flag of Stars claims to have found two sketches on a visit to the soon-to-be headquarters of the Ballarat Historical Society in 1963, which may be the original plans for the Eureka flag. One is a two dimensional drawing of the Eureka flag inscribed with the words "blue" and "white" to denote the colour scheme and Cayley has concluded: "It looks like a rough design of the so-called King Flag." The other sketch was "pasted on the same piece of card shows the flag being carried by a bearded man" that Cayley believes may have been intended as a representation of Henry Ross.
  There has been an expert analysis of the Cayley sketches carried out by Ballarat militaria consultant Paul O'Brien who says:
  "This sketch, once in the collection of the Ballarat Historical Society, location now unknown, was originally displayed with another sketch representing the 'Eureka' or 'King' flag and was labelled 'Found in a Tent After the Affair at Eureka'. The sketches were first reproduced in Frank Cayley's book Flag of Stars (Rigby, 1966). The assumption made in the accompanying text was that the sketch was a draft design for the making of the flag.
  "While this assumption is quite plausible, it would seem more likely that the sketch was made after the capture of the flag. Note the tattered leading edge and indistinct star. The number of points to the stars represented also does not tally with those on the surviving 'King' flag. This sketch was, perhaps, drawn after the flag was 'brought in triumph' to the government camp and while it was being savaged by eager souvenir hunters.
  "The two sketches have been drawn by different hands, and many details of design differ considerably (notably the hoist edge and number of star points). The size of the flag in the sketch with figure does not tally with the enormous size of the 'King' flag, and is probably a later, not contemporary, representation."
  Professor Anne Beggs-Sunter mentions an article reportedly published in the Ballarat Times "shortly after the Stockade referring to two women making the flag from an original drawing by a digger named Ross. Unfortunately no complete set of the Ballarat Times exists, and it is impossible to locate this intriguing reference."
  The theory that the Eureka flag is based on the Australian Federation Flag has precedents in that "borrowing the general flag design of the 
caption: Portrait of Henry Ross who some speculate was the designer of the Eureka flag.
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