Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This silent, black-and-white clip shows the ceremony at Centennial Park in Sydney where the Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed on 1 January 1901. It shows Governor-General John Adrian Louis Hope, seventh Earl of Hopetoun, being greeted by caretaker Prime Minister Edmund Barton and the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, William Smith. Lord Hopetoun gives an oath of allegiance and oath of office as Governor-General, after which the (soon-to-be) ministers of the first federal government are sworn in. The Governor-General and government ministers are shown signing an oath of allegiance at a table in the centre of the pavilion.

Educational value points

• Prior to 1901 each Australian colony was a completely separate political entity, paying and collecting tariffs on goods that crossed its borders. The inefficiency of this system, a growing unity among colonists and a belief that a national government was needed to deal with issues such as trade, defence and foreign policy, immigration, currency, weights and measures and the administration of the Northern Territory pushed the colonies towards federating. A series of Federation conferences and state referendums was held in the 1890s to draft a constitution for the Commonwealth of Australia.

• Federation was made legally possible through a British Act of Parliament known as the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act that was passed by the British Parliament and given Royal Assent by Queen Victoria on 9 July 1900. The Act enabled the six Australian colonies, then still subject to British law, to form their own Commonwealth Government as set out by the Constitution. The Constitution detailed the structure and powers of the Commonwealth Government and defined how it and the colonies, which now became states, would share power and responsibility.

• The new parliament was modelled on the Westminster system and consisted of the Monarch, a Senate and a House of Representatives. The two houses of parliament were to be elected by all adult, native-born or naturalised British subjects who had lived in Australia for at least six months. Since both South Australia and Western Australia had already given women the right to vote, the new Commonwealth Parliament extended the franchise to women in all states in 1902. The same Act specifically disqualified 'Aboriginal natives’ of Australia from voting.

• The ceremony to mark the Inauguration of the Commonwealth took place in the Federation Pavilion, an ornate, open-sided temporary structure designed for the occasion by New South Wales Government architect Walter Vernon. The pavilion was made of fibrous plaster and wood by Sydney plasterwork firm Grant and Cocks, which specialised in 'plastic art’ or the modelling of plasterwork, and was dismantled after three years.

• Support for federation was high and Australians united under the slogan 'one people, one flag, one destiny’. Some 100,000 spectators witnessed the Inauguration of the Commonwealth ceremony, and thousands more lined the route of the Great Inaugural Procession that preceded the ceremony. 'Commonwealth Celebrations’, which ran over eight days and included a state banquet, parades, fireworks, concerts and picnics, were held throughout Australia.

• Sir Edmund Barton (1849–1920) was Australia’s first prime minister and a passionate advocate of federation. A lawyer, Barton was elected to the NSW Parliament in 1879 and represented NSW at the Federation Conventions. Barton was part of a delegation sent to London in 1900 to lobby for the passage of the Australian Commonwealth Constitution Bill through the British Parliament, and his legal knowledge was vital in these negotiations. During his term as prime minister much of the machinery of the new Commonwealth Government was put in place. He was knighted in 1902.

• The Governor-General and the future ministers signed an oath of allegiance to the new Commonwealth using the same pen, inkstand and table as Queen Victoria had used to sign the Australian Commonwealth Constitution Act in England on 9 July 1900. The new nation was created as a constitutional monarchy with the English monarch as Head of State.

• This footage is believed to be the first moving images of a nation being created. The NSW Government commissioned the Limelight Department, a film production arm of the Salvation Army, to film the Federation events, including the ceremony and preceding procession. It was shown in cinemas across Australia, as well as in Britain and Canada. It was the first Australian film to use multiple cameras, but since cameras of the period were basic and could not tilt or pan, the footage is limited to wide static shots.

This clip starts approximately 8 minutes into the documentary.

This clip shows Sydney’s Archbishop, William Smith, welcoming Lord Hopetoun and Prime Minister Edmund Barton, and dignitaries to the swearing in of Australia’s first federal cabinet and for the reading of the Proclamation of the Constitution at Centennial Park, Sydney on 1 January 1901. The clip is silent. There are rows of military personnel in full ceremonial dress. We then see a shot of all officials with partners walking up to a platform in a rotunda where several men are standing around a table where papers are being signed. The official entourage then walk back down the stairs through a line of men in military dress as they salute.