Last modified: 2016-02-21 by bruce berry
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The colonial flags (Natal, Cape Colony, Transvaal and Orange River Colony) became dormant when they joined together to form the Union of South Africa on 31 May 1910 and the Union Flag of Great Britain became the official flag.
Apparently it was the custom in the former South African colonies to use and
regard the colonial flags for use on land as well as at sea. I think this was
more a case of ignorance by the locals about the finer points of British
vexillology. The Cape colonial Blue Ensign became
generally known as the Cape Government flag which implies that it might have
been flown at various colonial offices, but I have found no records to confirm
this. The same applied in Natal. When the Natal Legislature on their own
initiative adopted both a Red and Blue ensign in 1870, the Blue Ensign was later
modified on instructions by the Colonial Office as the Natal Seal which they had
placed in the fly was too complicated. The Blue Ensign was then apparently
designated as the only valid colonial flag for Natal. The inhabitants did,
however, continue to use the original Natal Red Ensign. There is a surviving
example in the Killie Campbell Library in Durban.
Even the Boer republicans acknowledged the Cape Government flag as representing
the Cape Colony. The design of the little New Republic's flag
was a vierkleur with the blue and green bars interchanged. But the original
design approved by the Volksraad made provision for flaglets on
each bar: on the vertical blue bar a small Union Jack, on the horizontal red bar
a small Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR) vierkleur, on the white bar the
Orange Free State vierkleur and on the horizontal
green bar the Cape Government flag. As far a I can ascertain, this
complicated
design was, perhaps fortunately, never made or taken into use although the plain
version without the flaglets was used until the New Republic was absorbed by the
ZAR. Later it was for a time also used as the municipal flag for the town of Vryheid - formerly the capital of the New Republic.
When the warrants were issued for Red and Blue ensigns for the Union of South
Africa in 1910-12, the Red Ensign came to be regarded by the citizenry as the
national flag, erroneously of course as the national flag of the Union
officially remained the Union Jack. Even in Government circles - when Union
troops under the command of General Louis Botha (he was also the Union's Prime
Minister) took the town of Windhoek in German South West Africa in March 1915,
he hoisted the SA Red Ensign over the Tintin Palast (the German Governor's
Residence). There are even indications that the South African Blue Ensign was
used over overseas offices of the Union Government. Even after the Union adopted
the new national flag in 1928, it continued to use the South African Red Ensign
in its proper role as the Merchant Marine ensign until 1951 before the Merchant
Shipping Act of that year designated the orange-white-blue national flag also as
the Merchant ensign.
Andre Burgers, 07 Dec 2004
You might be interested to know, that I discovered a picture of South
Africa's first flag (1910-1928). It was a red ensign (a red flag with
the Union Jack in the upper left corner) and it had a crest on the fly
with four quarters, in each of which were the emblems of the former provinces -
Cape, Natal,
Transvaal and Orange Free State.
James Alcock, 08 Oct 1999
The governing authority in the British Empire for flags flown at sea
was the British Admiralty. On 28 December 1910, Admiralty warrants were issued
for two South African ensigns, the Blue and the Red. They were both to
be charge on the fly with the quartered shield from the Coat of Arms.
Initially the shield was NOT placed on a roundel.
The Blue Ensign was, in accordance with general British practice,
to be flown by Government vessels (not warships of which South Africa had
none anyway at the time), and the Red Ensign by South African merchant
vessels.
The Blue Ensign version was rarely seen in South Africa as South Africa
had few such government owned vessels at that time. There is evidence that
it was used on occasion on overseas offices of the country until the new
South African flag came into use in 1928.
The design South African Red Ensign was amended by
Admiralty Warrant on 25 March 1912 so that the shield could be more readily
distinguished by placing it in the centre of a white roundel. This did not
apply to the Blue Ensign.
The Red Ensign was for use at sea as the merchant fleet ensign. This version of the South African Red Ensign continued in use in the merchant navy until 1951 when it was finally displaced at sea by the South African national flag in terms of the Merchant Shipping Act of that year.
image
by Mark Sensen, 08 Oct 1999 and Blas Delgado Ortiz, 14 May
2002
The Red Ensign was, at times, also used as the national flag ashore,
although it was the Union Jack that officially enjoyed this status.
These flags never enjoyed much support and were regarded more as necessary
conveniences than as symbols of the still non-existent national unity.
They were largely ignored by both segments of the white population and
rarely flown in public. The Red Ensign's most prominent moment was probably
when General Louis Botha, former Commandant-General of the Zuid-Afrikaanse Republiek forces,
later Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa and Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces,
hoisted it over Windhoek (in the then German South West Africa), after capturing that town from the Germans in 1915. The South African troops
fighting in East Africa, the Middle East and in the trenches in France
during the First World War, did so under the Union Jack.
Source: "Sovereign flags of Southern Africa",
A. P. Burgers, 1997 [bur97].
Jarig Bakker, 11 May 2002
Various sources inform us that the Red Ensign with South African flag badge was replaced
by the South African national flag as the merchant ensign in 1951, and some writers state
that this was in terms of the Merchant Shipping Act 1951. Well, section 65 of
this Act, in its original form, did indeed state that "the national flag of the
Union is hereby declared to be the national colours for all ships registered in
the Union" -- but the
Act wasn't brought into operation in 1951. It was kept in abeyance for
several years.
The list of authorised flag stations in the revised Instructions for Flying
the National Flag issued in 1958 (Government Gazette 6085 dated 25
July 1958) included "ships of SA nationality in accordance with the provisions
of section sixty-five of the Merchant Shipping Act 1951 (Act No. 57 of 1951) as
soon as it comes into operation". The Act was eventually brought into
operation on 01 January 1960. So, on the face of it, then, did the Red
Ensign legally remain the merchant ensign of South Africa until midnight on 31
December 1959? Or does anyone know of any proclamation or government notice or
official pronouncement to the contrary?
Arthur Radburn, 15 August 2010
The abolition date of the South African
red ensign is in fact 1951. Despite the introduction of the South African
National flag on 31 May 1928, the red ensign continued in use as the Mercantile
Marine flag until 1951 in terms of the provisions of section 65 of the Merchant
Shipping Act 1951 (Act No. 57 of 1951).
Source: "The Union Jack over Central and Southern Africa 1795 - 1994"
by FG Brownell, SAVA Journal 1994 [brl94].
Martin Grieve, 16 August 2010
What is the evidence that the Merchant Shipping Act 1951 was not brought into
operation until 01 January 1960?
David Prothero, 16 August 2010
The effective date of the Merchant Shipping Act is printed at the top of the Act
in the Butterworths printed statutes of South Africa. Also, John
Hare's book on Shipping Law and Admiralty Jurisdiction in SA (1999) mentions the
date several times.
The Act provided that it would come into operation on a date to be fixed by the
Governor-General by proclamation, so there is no doubt
a proclamation buried in the Government Gazettes which would be an
original primary source.
The Instructions for Flying the National Flag which were issued in July
1958 required the national flag to be flown on ships registered under the Act
"as soon it comes into operation", which implies that the change of flag had not
yet taken place at that time.
Arthur Radburn, 17 August 2010
An on-line 2003 copy of the Merchant
Shipping Act of 1951 is headed "Assented to 27 June 1951". "Date of commencement
01 January 1960".
Yet all the flag books published in the 1950s, that I have found, state that the
national flag had replaced the Red Ensign as the merchant flag. Some
include the year 1951 such as in Gresham-Carr's Flags of the World (1953
and 1956) [car53
and car 56]; Kannik's A Handbook of Flags (1958)
[kan58a] and The Flag Book
(1959) [kan59]. Others, such as the Admiralty Flags of All Nations (1955)
[hms55]and
Evans' The Observer's Book of Flags (1959) [eva59], merely state that the
national flag was the merchant flag;
A possible explanation for this contradictory information can be found in Pama's
Lions and Virgins (1965) [pam65] where he states that, "It (the old Red
Ensign) only disappeared when, in 1951, all ships registered in South Africa
were requested to fly the new flag." This suggests that
merchant ships were expected to fly the national flag after 1951, but that it
was not legally enforceable until 1960. It would be interesting to know why
implementation of the Act was delayed.
David Prothero, 20 August 2010
Clarification of the issue of the
starting date for use of the former South African national flag as the ensign of
merchant ships will ultimately need to be determined by one of our South African
members.
However, as David Prothero has pointed out, the Merchant Shipping Act 1951 of
South Africa can be read on the internet.
The heading states: Date of Commencement: 01 January, 1960 (Unless otherwise
indicated). Section 358 states "This Act shall be called the Merchant Shipping
Act, 1951, and shall come into operation on a date to be fixed by the State
President by proclamation in the Gazette: Provided that the State President may
from time to time by proclamation in the Gazette bring into operation only such
portions of this Act as he may specify in such proclamation."
Therefore it is possible that section 65, which related to the shipping flag may
have commenced earlier than the Act as a whole. The notes to the Act do not
indicate if any parts did (or did not) come into effect prior to 1960. The
on-line version of the Act only shows the current text of the Act, which has
been extensively modified by various amendment acts. Sections 19 to 67 were
repealed by Act 58 of 1998, and I have not been able to locate the original text
using internet resources.
Maritime law was one of the last areas of the law to migrate to local
legislation in Australia. The Imperial "Merchant Shipping
Act 1894" continued in force in Australia until the Shipping Registration Act
1981. Continued access to the established British Admiralty law, its precedents
and courts relating to the international enforcement of ship-mortgages, ship
registration, marine safety and insurance procedures, and the continuation of
laws relating to seamen and ships officers and the carriage of goods by sea
would have been seen as a pragmatic advantage that resulted in parts of the UK
legislation continuing in force in Australia long after the Statute of
Westminster of 1931. A similar situation probably occurred in South Africa where
the intent was likely to have been to progressively migrate the maritime law to
local legislation, but the coming to power of National Party Prime Minister
Verwoerd, who advocated South Africa becoming a republic outside of the
Commonwealth (which occurred on 31 May 1961), possibly led to the 1960
commencement of all of the South African Merchant Shipping Act.
I also note the observations of the late Andries Burgers in The South African
Flag Book [bur05], on page 152 where he states: "The Union Nationality and Flags Act
of 1928 had not made provision for the new
national flag to be flown at sea by South African merchant vessels. The
1912 version of the South African Red Ensign would therefore have continued in
use in the South African merchant marine until 1951 when it was finally
displaced at sea by the South African national flag in terms of the Merchant
Shipping Act of that year. It is not known for certain whether the South African
merchant marine actually used the defaced red ensign, but if they did, there are
indications that after 1928 South African merchant vessels reverted to the
British undefaced Red Ensign and it is considered that the reason might have
been that the defaced red ensign was no longer manufactured and thus became
unavailable when the new national flag was taken into use ashore."
So, there is doubt that the South African red ensign was widely used after 1928,
which would give support to all the indications that use of the national flag as
the merchant ensign occurred sooner, rather
than later.
Ralph Kelly, 21 August 2010
Since my last post, I've located the
proclamation which brought the Act into effect. It was signed by the Officer
Administering the Government (the Governor-General having recently died) on 08
December 1959, and published in the Government Gazette 6337 dated 24
December 1960. It brought the Act (except for sections 68 to 72 inclusive) into
operation on 01 January 1960.
I looked in the Government Gazette indexes for 1951 and 1952, but found
no proclamation to bring section 65, dealing with the flag, into operation at
that time.
As David Prothero has pointed out, various reference books in the 1950s gave
1951 as the date. However, none of them is a South African publication.
The earliest SA publication which I've found which refers to the merchant flag
is Pama's Simbole van die Unie, published in 1960, which reproduces, in
full, the instructions for flying the national flag had been published in
Government Gazette 6085 dated 25 July 1958. Those instructions required the
national flag to be flown on merchant ships registered under the Merchant
Shipping Act 1951 "as soon as it comes into operation".
Is it significant that none of the sources which give 1951 as the date are
specific as to day and month? Had there been some kind of directive to
change the flag in 1951, there would surely have been a specific implementation
date. And wouldn't the world's maritime authorities have had to be informed that
as from such-and-such a date, SA merchant ships will wear the national flag
instead of the Red Ensign?
Arthur Radburn, 21 August 2010
None of the sources I mention earlier
give a precise date because a precise date was apparently not specified.
In the 1953 edition of Flags of the World Gresham-Carr [car53] wrote, "The
South African Shipping Act, No. 57 of 1951, section 65, states: 'The National
Flag of the Union is hereby declared to be the national colours for all ships
registered in the Union.' "
I think it is correct to say that as far as foreign countries are concerned a
maritime flag has the function that its government says that it has. A flag's
legal status within its home country is no business of foreign countries. The
South African government announced in 1951 that the national flag was the
merchant flag, and although this function of the national flag became legally
unenforceable for a time, the government is not recorded as having changed or
retracted the 1951 announcement.
It seems that the national flag replaced the red ensign in 1951 and continued to
be used as the merchant flag until 1994. Due to a legal problem, that was
probably not directly connected to the flag, use of the national flag as the
merchant flag could be only requested, and not enforced, for a few years
immediately before 1960.
David Prothero, 25 August 2010
Image sent by James Hibbs, 22 Apr 2013
Please can you help me in identifying and dating this flag. It is South African
from 1910.
James Hibbs, 22 Apr 2013
image by Martin Grieve, 23 May 2015
This is an unauthorised version of the South African red ensign, which bears the full Arms in the fly instead of just the shield. How this version came into being is not known as the Admiralty Warrant authorising distinctive ensigns for South Africa, dated 28 December 1910, clearly specified that only the shield from the Arms should appear in the fly.
It would appear that this version dates from 1915 in view of its similarity to
the Colour presented to General Louis Botha in that year during the South West
Africa campaign. At the outbreak of World War I, at the request of the
British Government, General Louis Botha led a South African expeditionary force
into German South West Africa which entered Windhoek in May 1915. General Botha received the surrender of the main German force of 3 400 at Tsumeb in the
north of the territory on 09 July 1915 on behalf of King George V. A
silk Colour in the form of a South African red ensign with the full Arms
in the fly was presented to General Botha by the ladies of Worcester in the
Western Cape. This was hoisted in Windhoek on 31 May 1915 by General
Botha's second son, JCS Botha. The similarity to the flag shown
above would seem to indicate a common origin and a number of such unauthorised
versions are known to exist.
Bruce Berry, 30 Apr 2013
image sent by Arthur Radburn, 18 Jan 2016
This black and white
newsreel (from 0:45 onwards) shows two ensigns of this pattern draped in
front of the pavilion at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. The shade of the field
of the flag matches the field of the Union Jack canton - which we know to be
blue - rather than the cross or saltire (which we know to be red).
Although the date of the newsreel is given as 1927, the events shown took place
in December 1926.
The fact that the ensign in the newsreel was displayed at the government's head
office building, on the occasion of a speech by the Prime Minister, suggests
that it was officially sanctioned. It was not approved by the UK Admiralty, but
if its use was confined to land, it didn't need to be. Perhaps it was authorised
by a cabinet decision, in which case a search in the National Archives in
Pretoria might prove fruitful.
Evidently the coats of arms on the backs of the flags were in reverse.
Arthur Radburn, 18 Jan 2016
The governing authority in the British Empire for flags flown at sea
was the British Admiralty. On 28 December 1910, Admiralty Warrants were issued
for two South African ensigns, the Blue and the Red. They were both to
be charged in the fly with the quartered shield from the
Coat of Arms. Although the design of the Red
Ensign was amended in 1912 so that the shield was to be placed on a white
roundel, this did not apply to the Blue Ensign.
The Blue Ensign was, in accordance with general British practice,
to be flown by Government vessels (not warships of which South Africa had
none anyway at the time), and the Red Ensign by South African merchant
vessels.
The Blue Ensign version was rarely seen in South Africa as South Africa
had few such government owned vessels at that time. There is evidence that
it was used on occasion at overseas offices of the country until the new
South African flag came into use in 1928.
Source: "Sovereign flags of Southern Africa", A. P. Burgers, 1997 [bur97].
Jarig Bakker, 11 May 2002
Some additional information about the South African Blue Ensign:
Various sources state that the ensign was replaced by the National Flag at the
end of May 1928. Certainly, the flag-flying regulations issued in May 1931
stated that the National Flag was to be flown on "government craft when within
Union territorial waters". However, on the high seas, the defaced Blue Ensign
evidently continued to be flown until the late 1930s, if not later.
The South African Railways & Harbours operated a few
steamers, which regularly sailed to the Far East and Australia. According
to a July 1937
article in the Adelaide (South Australia) newspaper, The Advertiser,
when these ships were in South African waters they flew the National Flag, and
when they were on the high seas they flew the defaced Blue Ensign. This
was because the Blue Ensign was "recognised the world over", while the National
Flag was "not widely known outside the Union".
Arthur Radburn, 11 Oct 2015