South Australia, 1876

In 1876 the British Colonial Office suggested a new design for South Australia’s first flag be adopted as the present design was “inconveniently similar to that of New Zealand and Victoria”. The new badge was an allegorical scene, depicting the arrival of Britannia (a woman in flowing garb with a shield, representing the white settlers) meeting an Aborigine sitting with a spear at the foot of a hill by the seashore, with on the rocks behind him a rock carving of a kangaroo. Although proposed on 24 March 1876, the new badge was apparently not introduced until 28 November 1878.