IT’S the 112th birthday of the Australian flag on Tuesday and the Australian National Flag Association is looking for living relatives of the original designers.
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Five people jointly won the official flag design competition run in 1901.
They were Annie Dorrington from Perth who became a well-known artist, 14-year-old schoolboy Ivor Evans from Melbourne whose father owned a flag making business, 18-year-old apprentice optician Leslie John Hawkins from Leichhardt in Sydney, 35-year-old architect Egbert John Nuttall from Prahran in Victoria and first officer William Stevens from the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand.
Flag association president Allan Pidgeon said, “We’d like to honour the memory of those who won the world’s first ever open public competition to design a national flag.
“Australia’s flag is unique not only because it is the only one to fly over an entire continent, but especially because of the way it was chosen following federation in 1901.”
There was a huge response to the competition, with one per cent of the population entering.
The judges settled on five designs that were almost identical and each of the winners received £40 when their names were revealed on September 3, 1901.
Anyone who can identify descendants of the winners can send details to info@australianflag .net.au
