FLAGS

Stern flags worn by warships and merchant ships

Written by Godfrey Dykes

© RN Communications Branch Museum/Library

  The following coloured plates, come from the late 19th century. When considering their age, the colour texture and plate designs are almost contemporary 21st century products.

  The naval ensign's and merchant flag's were used by Queen Victoria's Navy and the foreign flags were regularly seen abroad as well as in British ports.

  Note the name of the BLUE ENSIGN, that there is a 'strange' flag representing Ireland, and that the Welsh have been forgotten. Also the spelling of some of the names, for example, the spelling of Chili of Corea and of Hawaian. Some of the countries shown are no longer, whilst others remain but under a different name.

  The dating of the plates is relatively easy because there are a few tell-tale signs, one being the Hawaian (Hawaiian) flag. Hawaii came under American administration in the last quarter of the 19th century, though it did not become a state of the USA, at least not at that time. Read on! Yet in these plates, the Hawaiian flag has the British Union Jack in its top corner.

  Flag sharing was not uncommon, and here we can see two groups of countries, essentially Islam, each group sharing one flag. One is Morocco, Muscat and Zanzibar and the other is Turkey, Egypt and Tripoli. However, the most obvious sign is the flag of the United States of America, the Star Spangled Banner. For ALL Star Spangled Banners, the common feature has ALWAYS been the proverbial 13 stripes, 7 red and 6 white, representing the original 13 States of the Union, although surprisingly, it wasn't until 1912 that America put its much revered flag on an official footing. Before 1912, many regions produced their own 'national' flags each region interpreting the rules for their own reasons.

  What has changed over the years is the number of stars which fill the blue coloured field of the flag, the field representing a new constellation in the heavens above. Take a good look at the US flag shown on its plate here. It has two horizontal rows of 8 stars (top and bottom) and in between, 4 horizontal rows of 7 stars, making a total of 44 stars.

  Today of course, the flag has 50 stars for 50 States, and it is the TWENTY SEVENTH flag since the War of Independence. They have had flags with 13, 15, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, and 43 stars, the jumps in the number sequence denoting the number of States joining: for example between 38 stars and 43 stars five new States joined the Union all on the same 4th of July. That accounts for twenty one different flags. Now let us look in more detail at the last six flags i.e., from 44 stars to 50 stars.

The following table shows the flag variation and the associated history.

Therefore, the plates date from sometime AFTER 1891 but BEFORE 1896.

I hope you find them of interest.

	Note the ENSIGN column and the MERCHANT FLAG column for each country, except in the case of Switzerland and the ten countries below. Also note the old pre 1920’s Irish British Flag. After that time for a wee mo, it became the Irish Free State then Eire.

Yours aye

Godfrey (Jeff) Dykes January 2004