If the Commodore commands the ship himself the Pendant shall have a large white Ball near the staff and he shall not rank as a Rear Admiral.
Prior to 1806, Commodores appear to have kept their pendants flying in all circumstances. The new regulations, however, directed that if the Commodore met a senior captain, that captain was also to hoist a broad pendant, but if there were more than one senior to him then the Commodore was to strike his broad pendant instead.
This anomalous arrangement was altered in the Regulations of 1824, which provided that no Commodore should fly his broad pendant, or even hold the rank, while in the presence of a senior captain; but the difference in the two positions, dependant on the presence or absence of a second captain in the commodore's ship, was accentuated by dividing the commodores into two distinct classes on this basis; the first class flying the red or white pendant and the second the blue only.
A plain Red Broad Pendant, or a White Broad Pendant with a Red Cross in it, is to be worn by Commodores of the First Class; but when more than one such Commodore shall be present, the Senior only shall wear the Red Pendant, and the other, or others, the White Pendant.
A Blue Pendant is to be worn by Commodores of the Second Class.
With the abolition of the squadronal colours in 1864, the red and blue broad pendants disappeared. Commodores of the first class were to wear the white broad pendant at the main and those of the second class the same pendant at the fore. In boats the latter were to have a red ball in the upper canton of their pendants. From the same cause as that which affected the admirals' flags, this form with the ball soon became the only one in use for the second class.
Originally fourteen times as long as it was wide at the head, the broad pendant became gradually shorter. By the time the red and blue forms were abandoned it had reached its present proportions, in which it is only twice as long as its greatest breadth.
In 1913 the provision that Commodores should strike their broad pendant while in the presence of a senior captain was deleted from the King's Regulations. Commodores take rank and command of each other according to their seniority as captains and without regard to the class to which they belong, so that a Second Class Commodore flying a Broad Pendant with a ball might be the superior officer of a First Class Commodore flying the pendant without the ball, normally the superior flag, and the relative precedence of these flags would thereby become inverted while these two Commodores were in company or in the same port.
(b) The Senior Officers' Pendant
Ten years after the institution of the Distinction Pendant to denote a Commander-in-Chief who did not hold flag rank, Lord Dartmouth, then in command of an expedition against Algiers, hit upon the idea of granting a similar pendant to the senior captain of three or more ships that might casually happen to be in company. His orders, dated 1st January, 1684[294], contain the following provisions: