1889
The Rising Sun Badge
The origins of the Australian Army Rising Sun badge have been the subject of many attempts to pin it down, with some expressing absolute confidence in their version, and these varying versions picked over, supported, denigrated, accepted and repeated. Short of some absolute revelation, we can but guess on which images were most powerful in getting us to the version which was officially adopted and subsequently adapted. The ongoing lesson is that historians who use the words first, last, biggest, smallest etc etc are highly likely to have another researcher trump them with a firster, laster, etc version.
Always better to leave an escape by using more general expressions to allow for the fact that there is no law of the universe which says you must be right. The same applies to the luvvies who say with absolute confidence 'you're wrong!', who deserve the humiliation they often get when it is they who are caught out, and have no other resort than the personal abuse which they then have to fall back on. It is not only the climate change religionists who back them who back themselves into such corners. Historians do well to respond to others with the more polite 'why do you say that?' or 'what is your evidence' rather than dogmatic claims meant to overwhelm and intimidate others.
Early uses of Rising-Sun like images
The rising sun in the background of the cover of a novel written in 1877 about a fictional Russian invasion of Sydney was intended to signify xxxxxx
Hoadley's Rising Sun insignia was painted on the wall of its Rising Sun Preserving Works factory on St Kilda Road near to Victoria Barracks Melbourne, where the new Commander of the Australian Army was installed in Xxxxxx 1902.
Before 1906, the only building near Victoria Barracks in St Kilda Road, Melbourne was the Hoadleys Jam factory. The label design on the jam tins was remarkably similar to the design of the second pattern of the Rising Sun badge. The title on the label emblem was `The Rising Sun'. One exterior wall of the factory displayed a large image of the jam tin label. Large quantities of this jam were issued to the Australian troops in South Africa (`one tin for four men, twice a week'). The nickname Hoadleys Horse was often given to the troops because of the similarity of their badge to the label. Since the introduction of the first badge in 1902, the Australian Army badge has always been referred to as the Rising Sun. However, it has never been officially called the Rising Sun badge. It was originally called Badge, Commonwealth and more recently Insignia General Service or General Service Badge. (Voluntary Guides' Backgrounder, publication of the Australian War Memorial, March 2001, quoting among other references Rick Grebert's Rising Sun Badge Origin and Theories (ISBN 0 646 205129).
The famous Rising Sun Badge selected as the Army's General Service badge in 1902 but now the badge of the army, originated in colonial South Australia.
The original concept, a collection of bayonets and sword bayonets radiating from a crown, was designed as a trophy. The initial drawing was done by Major Joseph Maria Gordon, of the South Australian Permanent Artillery who, in 1893, was appointed to be the first commanding officer of the newly constructed Fort Glanville on the coast west of Adelaide. The working drawing for the trophy was the work of an Adelaide artist, Mr. Frank Bartels, and was titled 'Australian - Rising Sun'.
Major Gordon requested the assistance of the navy in the manufacture of the trophy. It was made by a shipwright aboard the South Australian colonial vessel HMCS Protector and Major Gordon hung it in the officer's quarters at Fort Glanville, probably in 1893. It remained there for some time.
Major Gordon was later to be appointed Commandant of the South Australian Military Forces and he rose to be Chief of the General Staff before his retirement in 1914. It is believed that he took the Rising Sun trophy with him when he left Fort Glanville for it was still in his possession in 1902. That year he parted with it. He presented it to Major-General Sir Edward Hutton, a British officer who had arrived in Australia earlier that year at the request of the Federal Government to organize the heterogeneous forces of the six states into one Commonwealth Army. Major-General Hutton placed the trophy above the doorway to his office in Victoria Barracks, Melbourne, and it remained there for two years.
When the 1st Battalion, Australian Commonwealth Horse, was being raised for war service in South Africa, Major-General Hutton decided that the force should have a special badge.
He is reported to have pointed to the trophy above his doorway and said: “Why not something like that?” His suggestion was acted upon and three pencil designs were submitted to a Melbourne firm of die-sinkers. One was chosen and a supply of badges was hurriedly made for the 1st Battalion.
Before Major-General Hutton returned to England he was honoured with a dinner, presided over by the naval chief Rear-Admiral Sir William Rooke Creswell, and held at Melbourne's Menzies Hotel.
During his speech, Major-General Hutton referred to the Rising Sun trophy. He said: "It resulted from a coordinated effort by the army and navy in South Australia . . . to me it represents not only the coordination of military forces, it also represents the coordination of the naval and military forces of the Commonwealth, and this is happily suggested by the circumstances of its construction . . . it was constructed aboard the first major sea-going ship of the Commonwealth Naval Forces."
Major-general Hutton then presented the trophy and Mr. Bartel's drawing to Rear-Admiral Creswell. He said that the drawing was to be regarded as the 'Title to the Australian Sun' which he entrusted to the Admiral until its disposal to a more permanent site. Rear-Admiral Creswell placed the trophy in the care of the Naval Commandant, in Port Melbourne. From there it was transferred to the Williamstown Naval Depot pending a permanent site at Flinders Naval Depot.