Bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Australian flag, this standard predates the official Australian flag by two decades.
The flag was made by Mrs Mitchell’s great-grandmother, Elizabeth Nicholls (nee Tallack). Mrs Mitchell believed the flag was used as a decoration for the visit to Sandford by Lord Hopetoun (when he was still a Viscount) in the early 1880s.
This may have been at the time of the Royal Visit in 1881, when the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of York visited the shire, but there is no account to support this theory.
Elizabeth Nicholl’s daughter Phillipa (born 1865) sang “Will Ye No Come Back Again” in a concert in honour of Hopetoun during his visit, and following the concert he asked that the young lady and her mother be presented. The following afternoon Hopetoun came to afternoon tea, which was a great honour for the Nicholls family.
Hopetoun did visit the Shire in May 1892, after he became Lord Hopetoun, but it is likely the flag was made for an earlier visit. Mrs Mitchell believed that her grandmother Phillipa was a young girl when she performed for Hopetoun, and Phillipa would have been around 16 years old in 1881.
The 7th Earl of Hopetoun (John Adrian Louis Hope) was born in 1860, and at the age of 23 he was appointed the Conservative Whip in the House of Lords. He became Lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria in 1885, and in 1889 Hopetoun was appointed Governor of Victoria.
On July 13 1900, Queen Victoria approved Lord Hopetoun’s appointment as the first Governor General of the Commonwealth of Australia.
The flag was originally donated to the Casterton and District Historical Society Inc. by Mrs A.M. Mitchell of Como, WA and in 2005 the Casterton and District Historical Society Inc. presented the flag to the Glenelg Shire Council Cultural Collection.