QUEENSLAND STEAM SHIPPING CO.

The funnel was black with two white bands, following British India. Bob Tompkins’s article shows a rectangular red flag with a white saltire, a “virtual reversal” of British India’s colours. The word virtual was omitted in the printed text, allowing a different interpretation because British India’s flag was swallowtailed and its saltire did not reach the fly. Article proofs confirmed the rectangle; a black-and-white Warrego photograph appears to support it. Mac McKellar likewise describes a white St Andrew’s cross on red.

The BIShip website instead shows a red swallowtail with a white saltire, but could not identify its source. Rosanoski conjectures that it may derive from World Ship Society records repeating the shortened “reversal” description. He favours the rectangular evidence while retaining the uncertainty; other websites show rectangles but have unknown sources.