Queensland and the Maltese Cross

I refer to the letter entitled The Maltese Connection (July 30). The contention that the Maltese Cross was adopted on the Flag of Queensland because the wife of the very first Governor of Queensland, Sir George Bowen, was Maltese seems to be inaccurate.

Sir George Ferguson Bowen (1821-1899) was indeed the first Governor of Queensland, from 1859 to 1868, but his wife was not Maltese, but Greek, having been born in the Greek island of Zakynthos, one of the seven Ionian islands off the west coast of Greece.

Sir Bowen was chief secretary to the government of the Ionian islands between 1854 and 1859, when they were still a British protectorate. He married his wife Diamantina, daughter of Count Candiano di Roma, who was President of the senate of the islands in 1856. The Roma family were local aristocracy and her father being president of the senate was the titular head of the islands from 1850 to 1856.

This subject reminds me about my state visit to Queensland in April 1993, in my capacity as Malta's High Commissioner to Australia at the time, when I paid a courtesy call on the Governor Mrs Leneen Ford. I observed that Queensland was not only closely linked to Malta through our pioneer migrants who settled in the sugar cane region of Mackay in the 1880s, but also through the state emblem on Queensland's flag that depicts the eight pointed cross of the Knights of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta.

The Governor was not aware of this connection and asked her aide de camp to investigate the subject and before my return to Canberra I was given a two-page report on the subject and a copy of the Queensland Government Gazette Vol XIX Notice published on November 29, 1876 (see below).

Subsequently the design was incorporated as part of the Queensland Coat of Arms. However, the fact remains that it is not known for certain exactly why the Maltese Cross with a superimposed crown was chosen as a suitable badge. Over the years various theories have been propounded and the one given best credence is that as the Victoria Cross was first bestowed in 1857 by Queen Victoria at the close of the Crimean War, and as Queensland was established in 1859, it would be a natural association of ideas to ally Queensland - "the Queen Victoria Land" with the Victoria Cross, which of course is in the form of a Maltese Cross with the Royal Arms and Lion superimposed.

The latter theory, and the fact that the actual proposal of the Maltese Cross was not put forward until 1876, quite some years after Governor Bowen left Queensland, are regarded as significant arguments against the theory that there was some association between the Maltese Cross and Lady Bowen.

In fact it is to be pointed out that Sir George Bowen retired from the Civil Service in 1886 and his only association with Malta was in 1887, when he chaired the Royal Commission on a new Constitution for Malta.

Coat of Arms of Queensland

James R. Dickson, Colonial Treasurer, The Treasury Queensland Brisbane, November 15, 1876

Government notification

His Excellency the Governor, with the advice of the Executive Council, has been pleased to direct that in the future the Badge of the Colony be emblazoned in the centre of the Union Flag for use by the Governor and to the employment at the Queensland Government shall be as herein described: Argent on a Maltese Cross Azure a Queen's Crown Proper.