Rising Sun (badge)
The Rising Sun badge, also known as the General Service Badge or the Australian Army Badge, is the official insignia of the Australian Army and is mostly worn on the brim of a slouch hat or, less frequently, on the front of a peaked cap for Army personnel filling certain ceremonial appointments. The badge is readily identified with the spirit of ANZAC, the legend of the Australian soldier (or digger), and the esprit de corps of the Army itself, due to its association with the landings at Gallipoli in 1915. Today, new recruits receive the badge with their initial issue of equipment, which happens within their first three days of enlistment.
The origins of the rising sun badge are disputed. It has been suggested that the association of the badge with the rising sun came from the trademark of a popular brand of jam at the time of its inception, known as 'Rising Sun jam', while other scholars have suggested that it represented the rising sun from the start. Rising sun designs had appeared on early Australian colonial coins and military insignia decades before the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901, and may have represented the image of Australia as 'a young nation' and a 'new Britannia'.
As early as the 1820s, the symbol of a 'rising sun' was used by various progressive organisations, loosely characterised under the banner "Advance Australia". The rising sun crest used in the New South Wales colonial and State crests was taken from the crest used on the first Advance Australia Arms, circa 1821, and consistently since then. The oldest known example is the 'Advance Australia' coat of arms. The 'Advance Australia Arms' (named because of the motto inscription) became widely used in New South Wales and the neighbouring colonies by private corporations and individuals. Although they never had any official status, they formed the basis for several official coats of arms, including the New South Wales coat of arms. The representation below was reputedly painted for Thomas Silk, the son of the captain of the Prince of Orange, a convict ship that visited Sydney in 1821. The symbol struck a chord with the pre-federation population and many examples still exist on colonial architecture.
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