MARITIME FLAGS

Sue Prichard, senior curator of arts at the National Maritime Museum and author of Flag Waves: House Flags from the National Maritime Museum, shares her favourite pieces from the collection

Flags are a key part of our maritime heritage, and the National Maritime Museum collection is an evocative reminder of Britain’s seafaring past. It holds around 1,000 pieces, including a range of colourful and diverse heraldic banners, royal standards, yacht flags and sledge flags from polar expeditions, as well as house flags of shipping companies and government departments.

I’m drawn to textiles that have a strong emotional resonance. So, I’m fascinated by a fragment of wool bunting from the ensign of HMS Victory, Vice-admiral Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar. Sailors from Victory carried their ship’s flags in his funeral procession from Greenwich Hospital to St Paul’s Cathedral, and at the culmination of the ceremony a wave of collective grief and emotion took hold of the ordinary seamen, who tore the flag into remnants.

I also have great affection for the striking use of imagery in West African Fante Asafo flags, and never cease to be amazed by the variety of designs used in house flags of shipping companies. (rmg.co.uk/national-maritime-museum)

Clockwise from top: Early 20th-century Ghanaian Fante Asafo flag depicting armed figures and a European ship; fragment of a wool bunting flag from HMS Victory, carried at Nelson’s funeral; 17th-century command flag, used by the Generals at Sea during the Commonwealth period, showing shields charged with the cross of St George and the harp of Ireland