Australia’s first national postage stamp was released on 2nd January 1914, almost a decade after the 6 British colonies united to become the Commonwealth of Australia. The stamp was revolutionary: maps were not common to occur on stamps; the monarch’s imagery is not on the stamp; it did not feature the winning design by Herbert Altmann from a competition conducted specifically to select one.
The one on the top left was the winning design, and the kangaroo from the third design is featured in the first stamp.
Australia’s Postmaster General, Charles Fraser, pushed hard for this Roo design and gave guidelines of what was to be used. William Blamire Young, a noted watercolour artist, was commissioned to design the new stamp. He produced 10 designs, none of which were selected.
The final design is the outcome of independent work by four men. The winner of the third prize in the stamp competition, which had a kangaroo as his centrepiece. Blamire Young put forward a number of designs with alternative bush scenes on a bold outline of Australia. Frazer liked the kangaroo, and liked also the white outline map of Australia on a dark background, and he put his ideas roughly on paper. These were handed over to Cooke, Government Stamp Printer, who prepared the design now finally adopted
In June 1913, a federal election saw the defeat of the Labor government in which Charles Frazer was a Minister. The new Liberal government's Postmaster-General, Agar Wynne, had plans for the Kangaroo stamps. Two weeks after he became Postmaster-General, Wynne announced that the stamps would be replaced by the winning design in the 1911 competition.
This design, however, continued to be in use till 1935 concurrently with other stamps.
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