The White Ensign, Fig. [95], the special flag of Her Majesty's Navy, is, by very exceptional privilege, allowed to be flown by the Royal Yacht Squadron. This distinction was conferred on that Club in the year 1829, the Club itself being established in 1812.[[54]] In the old days, when the Royal Navy used the red, white, and blue ensigns, the red ensign was of the highest dignity; and it was this from 1821 to 1829 that the Royal Yacht Squadron flew, but, as the red ensign was also used by merchant vessels, they adopted in 1829 the white ensign as being more distinctive. In 1842 the Admiralty drew up a Minute that no warrant should be issued to any other yacht club to fly the white ensign, and that those privileged Clubs that already had it must henceforth forego it. Copies of the minute were accordingly sent to the Royal Western of England, Royal Thames, Royal Southern, and some two or three other clubs, but, by some oversight, the Royal Western of Ireland was overlooked, and that Club continued to use the white ensign until the mistake was discovered by the Admiralty in the year 1857. Since that date the Royal Yacht Squadron, which has always been under the special patronage of Royalty, has been alone in its use. Its value is purely sentimental; it carries no substantial privilege. A rather marked case arose, in fact, to the contrary in 1883, when Lord Annesley's yacht, the Seabird, was detained by the Turkish authorities at the Dardanelles in consequence of her bearing the white ensign. No foreign man-of-war is allowed to pass the Dardanelles without special permission; and the white
ensign of the Royal Navy brought her within that category. On account of this, all yacht owners were warned that should they wish to pass the Dardanelles under the white or blue ensign, the latter being also the flag of the Royal Naval Reserve, they must first obtain an Imperial Iradé, otherwise they were recommended to display the red ensign. Austria-Hungary, Spain, Denmark, Italy, Sweden, Norway, and France have each, in like manner, given to the leading club of the country the privilege of flying the naval flag. In America and Russia a special ensign has been accorded to all yacht clubs, and all take equal rank. Some years ago the Royal Cork Yacht Club wished to adopt a green ensign, but the Admiralty refused to sanction a new colour.
The Blue Ensign is conferred on certain Yacht Clubs by special Admiralty warrant. The Royal Eastern, Royal Barrow, Royal Clyde, Royal Highland, Royal Northern, Royal Western of England, Royal Cinque Ports, Royal Albert, Royal Dorset, etc., fly the Blue Ensign pure and simple; others have a distinguishing badge on the fly, thus the Royal Irish has a golden harp and crown, the Royal Ulster a white shield with the red hand, the Royal Cornwall the Prince of Wales' Feathers, the Royal Harwich a golden rampant lion, and so forth. The clubs flying the Red Ensign change it slightly from that flown by the Merchant Service; thus the Royal St. George, Royal Victoria, and Royal Portsmouth have a golden crown in the centre of the Union canton, while the Royal Yorkshire has a white rose and gold crown on the fly, and the Royal Dart a golden dart and crown. Each club has also its distinguishing burgee, and ordinarily of the same colour as its ensign; thus, though the Royal Clyde and the Royal Highland both fly the plain blue ensign, the Royal Clyde burgee has on it the yellow shield and red lion rampant, while the Royal Highland has the white cross of St. Andrew. Fig. [100] is the burgee of the Ranelagh Club, Fig. [101] of the Yare, Fig. [102] of the Royal Thames, Fig. [103] of the Dublin Bay Club.
Besides these club ensigns and burgees, each yacht bears its owner's individual device, that is supposed to distinguish it from all others, though one finds, in looking through a series of such flags, that some of the simpler devices are borne by more than one yacht. Every yacht club has its special burgee, which is flown by each yacht in the club at her truck, but when the vessel is racing the individual flag takes its place. Many of these flags, though simple in character, are very effective and striking. The lower flags on Plate XII. are good typical examples. Fig. [121] is the yacht flag of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales—the flag of the well-known Britannia; and Figs. [122] and [123] are those respectively of the equally-famed Ailsa and Valkyrie.
Merchant vessels are permitted to adopt any House or Company flag on condition that it does not resemble any national flag. Its great use is that it should be clearly distinctive; and many of the flags employed are of strict heraldic propriety, and very attractive, while others are about as unsatisfactory and bald as they well could be. It would clearly be a painful and invidious thing to pick out any of these latter, so we can only suggest that any of our readers who have an opportunity of visiting busy ports, such as London, Southampton, Bristol, Liverpool, should collect their own awful examples and paint them in the margin of this page.
We may point out, by the way, that anyone sketching flags would be greatly assisted by knowing the symbols for the various colours, as it may well be that anyone might have only a pencil in his pocket when desiring to make such a memorandum. White is expressed by simply leaving the paper plain, yellow by dotting the surface over, red by a series of upright lines, blue by horizontal lines, green by sloping lines, and black by a series of upright lines crossed by others at right angles to them. These are the colours used in books on heraldry, and they are very easily remembered. On some of our coins the colours of the arms in the shield are thus expressed, and on heraldic book-plates and the like they may be also seen—wherever, in fact, colour has to be expressed or notified without the actual use of it. Our readers will find that if they will sketch out in black and white some few of our examples they will soon gain a useful facility that may stand them in good stead whenever for this or any other purpose they want to make a colour memorandum, and have only a pencil or pen and ink to make it with.
In the upper portion of Plate XII. we have several illustrations of Company flags. Fig. [109] is the well-known ensign of Green's Blackwall Line, while Fig. [110] is that of the Cunard. The Peninsular and Oriental flag (Fig. [111]) is divided by lines from corner to corner into four triangles, the upper one white, the lower yellow, the hoist blue, and the fly red. This division into triangles is a rather favourite one; we see it again in Fig. [112], the Flag of the Australasian Steam Navigation Company. In the flag of the Demerara and Berbice Steamship Company the upper and lower portions are white, and the two side portions red; in the flag of the vessels belonging to Galbraith, Pembroke and Co., the upper is red, the lower blue, and the two sides white. In another company, that of Wesencraft of Newcastle, the colours are the same as the P. and O. flag, though differently placed, the blue being at the top, the red at the bottom, the yellow at the hoist, and the white at the fly. Fig. [113] is the flag of the fleet of Devitt and Moore, an Australian Line. Fig. [114] betokens the vessels of the
Canadian Pacific Company, and Fig. [115] the ships of the Castle Line to South Africa. Fig. [116] is the Company flag of the Union Steamship Company, of Southampton, while Fig. [117] is the device of the Mediterranean and New York Steamship Company. Our remaining illustrations are; Fig. [118], the flag adopted by Messrs. Houlden Brothers; Fig. [119], that of the popular White Star Line; and Fig. [120], that of the New Zealand Shipping Company. The well-known Allan Line has as its house flag the three upright strips of blue, white, and red that we see in the French tricolor, Fig. [191], plus a plain red burgee that is always hoisted immediately above it. The Allan is the largest private ship-owning company in the world; in the course of the year there are some two hundred arrivals and departures of their vessels at or from Glasgow, and some fifty thousand people are carried annually to or from America. During the Crimean War many of the steamers of this line were chartered by the French Government for the transport of their troops, and it is in memory of this that the vessels of the Allan fleet adopt the tricolor as their house flag.
That we have by no means exhausted this portion of our subject is patent from the fact that in a book before us that is specially devoted to these house flags seven hundred and eighty-two examples are given, wherein we find not only stripes, crosses, and such-like simple arrangements, but crescents, stars, anchors, lions, stags, thistles, castles, bells, keys, crowns, tridents, and many other forms.