The Museum of Australian Democracy acknowledges the traditional owners and custodians of country throughout Australia. We recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to the people, the cultures and the elders past, present and emerging.

The museum respectfully acknowledges the role that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continue to play in shaping Australia’s democracy.

xClose
Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House
  • About
  • Blog
  • Prime Ministers
  • Websites
  • Venue hire
  • Visiting
  • What's On
  • Collection
  • Learning
  • Democracy
Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House
  • Visiting
    • Planning your visit
    • Families at MoAD
    • Access
    • Group bookings
    • Cafe
    • MoAD Shop
    • UNSW Canberra Howard Library
  • What’s On
    • Exhibitions
    • Events
  • Collection
    • The Building
    • Objects and rooms
    • Oral Histories
  • Learning
    • Teachers
    • Students
    • Parents
  • Democracy
    • Democracy 2025
    • Defining democracy
    • Australian democracy: an overview
    • The democratic audit of Australia
    • One thing I like about democracy
    • Links
    • Quotes
    • Notes
    • About
    • Blog
    • Prime Ministers
    • Websites
    • Venue hire
    From the blog

    Flags, snags and bags: Putting the finishing touches on the opening of Parliament House

    9 minute read

    Tue 2 May 2017 by
    Stephanie Pfennigwerth
    • building
    • collection
    • events
    • exhibitions
    • general
    • heritage
    • research

    Isn’t it funny how time warps when you’re working to a deadline? You can plan, you can strategise, you can even calibrate your watches – but no matter how organised you are, there always seems to be a mad rush at the end.

    So you can empathise with Henry Rolland, who as Chief Architect of the Federal Capital Commission was tasked with overseeing the construction of the new city of Canberra and its gleaming centrepiece, Parliament House. (The building was actually designed by John Smith Murdoch, Chief Architect of the Department of Works and Railways.) Parliament House had to be opened by the Duke of York at 11:00 am on 9 May 1927. There was no extension to this deadline.

    Henry’s papers, now in the National Library of Australia, provide some insight into a tight situation.

    Styling the city

    Parliament House (now Old Parliament House) wasn’t always old. Ninety years ago it was opened as the brand-spanking new seat of the federal Parliament — in a paddock a long way from anywhere. As if building a city was not enough, Henry was involved in the final preparations prior to the arrival of the Duke and Duchess of York.

    Someone had decided that the royal route around Canberra would be dotted with ‘strong posts’. These were not defensive stone turrets bristling with archers, as their name suggests, but places where the public could gather to view the procession. The posts were to be lavishly decorated with streamers, bunting and flags.

    J.B. Young in Eastlake in 1927
    Canberra’s first department store, J. B. Young in Eastlake (now Kingston), rocking its bunting in May 1927. Image: Museum of Australian Democracy Collection

    But it seems Canberra didn’t have any flags. The Canberra Times reported that the council of neighbouring Queanbeyan had three flags, but one of them was the national flag of Belgium. The NSW Public Works Department said they didn’t have any flags, either. To make matters worse, the nation’s capital lacked a civic council to do the actual decorating work.

    After much angst in the Canberra Times, the flags and bunting magically materialised. But public working bees could only do so much. ‘[O]ur Department was responsible for the whole of the decoration of the main streets of Canberra’, Henry Rolland recalled. ‘We had to put up hundreds of poles and flags, in addition to completing Parliament House.’

    It’s possible to imagine Henry in his hat and tie up a ladder, perhaps with a length of rope clenched between his teeth, struggling to lash a Union Jack to a post on some dusty track as the minutes ticked away.

    Despite the Department’s efforts, the resulting display must have looked sparse because the posts were also festooned with foliage. Trees too were planted about the place to green things up a bit. The Sun reported that ‘many of them, including great numbers of pines, have simply been cut off and stuck in the ground. Still, they look well for the time being.’ Desperate times, desperate measures.

    ‘We did finish Parliament House in time,’ said Henry, ‘although I had carpenters in the Senate chamber within a few hours of the opening of the chamber.’

    Wardrobe malfunction

    But the devil’s in the detail, and Henry was going through hell trying to sort out another small but vital tweak. Forget the sawdust in the Senate — as the Royals almost literally loomed over the horizon, he had to get to grips with the practicalities of a symbolic ceremony at the heart of the building. 

    He had to arrange the unveiling of the statue of King George V in King’s Hall before the opening of Parliament itself.

    George V — by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions Beyond the Seas, Defender of the Faith, and Emperor of India — was regarded as the personification of the parliamentary and judicial foundations of Australian democracy.  He was also the Duke’s dad. Henry couldn’t muck it up.

    ‘I was anxious to make the unveiling symmetrical’, Henry recalled, ‘so I used two flags which were connected at the top with a small piece of cotton to which was attached a silken cord’. (He didn’t say where or how he managed to scrounge the flags.) When the silken cord was pulled, the cotton broke ‘and allowed the two flags to slip down over the statue.’

    But there was a snag. ‘The flags would catch on the epaulettes of the shoulders of George the Fifth.’

    They’re not really epaulettes. They’re the huge floppy bows that attach the gold collar of the King’s Order of the Garter regalia to his lush velvet robes. Sculpted in bronze by Sir Bertram Mackennal, the bows on the statue are hard, blunt instruments. 

    On this most auspicious occasion, having the flag of the Empire draped sloppily or worse, ripped on the big bronze bows of the Rex Imperator would not have been a good look. It might have even sent a wrong (possibly republican!) message to the place many Australians still considered ‘the Mother Country’.

    How to solve the snagging flags? ‘In the end I had to hang a sandbag behind [the statue] to allow the weight to bring the flags down’, Henry said. ‘The Duke arrived in the early morning for a rehearsal and I was able to explain to him how to manipulate the cord and fortunately it proved quite successful.’

    Henry’s being a bit modest. The unveiling on 9 May 1927 went off literally without a hitch in front of the Duke, Duchess, Governor-General, State Governors, Lieutenant-Governors, Prime Minister, Members of Parliament and everyone’s wives and Aides-de-Camp and staff and the band that played the national anthem and just about every other VIP in the nation. 

    And about an hour later, in what became the Senate Opposition Party Room, Henry Rolland was awarded an Order of the British Empire.

    9 minute read

    Tue 2 May 2017 by
    Stephanie Pfennigwerth
    • building
    • collection
    • events
    • exhibitions
    • general
    • heritage
    • research
    King George V and those flag-snagging bows. Image: Museum of Australian Democracy Collection

    King George V and those flag-snagging bows. Image: Museum of Australian Democracy Collection

    Stephanie survived more than a decade in the publishing industry before turning to environmental and cultural heritage management. After working on the conservation of Mawson’s Huts Historic Site, Antarctica, she swapped the ice for the outback, coordinating community education initiatives in the Shark Bay World Heritage Area, Western Australia. In 2009 she joined the curatorial team of the National Museum of Australia, then worked at the Department of the Senate and Questacon. She became a curator at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House in December 2012.

    Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House

    18 King George Terrace, Parkes, ACT 2600, Australia

    PO Box 3934
    Manuka ACT 2603

    9am to 5pm daily 
    Closed Christmas Day

    ABN: 30 620 774 963

    Telephone: 02 6270 8222

    Enquiries:
    info@moadoph.gov.au

    Please note: video surveillance is used 24 hours a day around and throughout the building and may be used for research purposes

    Visiting

    • Planning your visit
    • Families at MoAD
    • Access
    • Group bookings
    • Cafe
    • MoAD Shop
    • UNSW Canberra Howard Library

    What's On

    • Events
    • Exhibitions

    Collection

    • The building
    • Objects and rooms
    • Highlights
    • Oral histories

    Learning

    • Teachers
    • Students
    • Parents

    Democracy

    • Exploring democracy
    • Documenting a democracy
    • Australian democracy
    • Defining democracy
    • Democracy 2025

    About

    • OPH Board
    • Annual Reports
    • Budget
    • Corporate documents
    • Disability Inclusion Action Plan
    • Employment
    • Freedom of information
    • Public Interest Disclosure
    • Media
    • Newsletter
    • Support us
    • Partnerships
    • Our prime minister patrons
    • Donate to our collection
    • eCommerce terms and conditions
    • Online house rules

    Blog

    Prime Ministers

    Websites

    Further information

    View our recruitment opportunities.

    View our copyright policy.

    View our privacy statement.

    View our ticketing terms and conditions.

    Questions about the website:
    website@moadoph.gov.au

    The Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House is a Corporate Commonwealth Entity within the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts