The adoption of the arms was a belated response to a British government request, in 1869, for a design for a flag badge to identify the colony.

A Cape Town attorney with a keen interest in heraldry, Charles Aken Fairbridge (1824-1893), was accordingly asked to design arms for the Colony.

According to the Cape Argus newspaper, "among the conspicuous features of the spectacle was the new colonial flag, hoisted aloft above the cornerstone, with the heraldic shielding, surroundings and mottoes blazoned on the Union Flag and the Royal Standard floating in the breeze from the loftiest flagstaff in the centre".

The lion is a South African animal, and also appears in the arms of the two colonial powers which ruled at the Cape, Netherlands and Great Britain.

[3] The supporters, a gnu (wildebeest) and an oryx (gemsbok), are two typical South African animals.