The souvenir textile item celebrating the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia was made by Merchant and Co., Printers, of Sydney, and measures 45cm x 45cm. The imagery on the textile, which foregrounds the royal visit of the Duke and Duchess of York to Australia to open the first federal Parliament in Melbourne on 9 May 1901, would suggest that it was produced to honour this aspect of the Federation process.

The textile’s imagery constitutes a summary version of Australian settler history leading up to the culminating point of Federation in 1901.

The textile’s wording utilises some of the key terms of the time, for example, the slogan ‘One people, one destiny’, and the description of Sir Henry Parkes as the ‘Father of Federation’. The Australian coat of arms on the textile is the same ‘unofficial’ version that appears on the 1888 plate, with the motto, ‘Advance Australia’, a design that began to be adopted widely in the mid-nineteenth century.

[Written by Roslyn Russell, 13 October 2019]

Commemorative handkerchief or scarf made to celebrate the Federation of Australia in 1901. The cloth is printed with portraits of the Duke and Duchess of York, the first Governor-General of Australia, the Earl Hopetoun, Queen Victoria, Captain James Cook, Sir Henry Parkes and Captain Arthur Phillip. There are also images of the major cities of the six different colonies which were incorporated into the Federation: Brisbane, Queensland; Hobart, Tasmania; Melbourne, Victoria as it was in 1838 and 1901; Sydney, New South Wales at first contact in 1770 and in 1901; Perth, Western Australia and Adelaide, South Australia.