Union Jack

• 1. Introduction

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  The Union Jack, the national flag of the United Kingdom, has a right way up, and it is often hung upside down without anyone noticing. Even commercially made hand waving flags are sometimes displayed the wrong way. The mistake passes unseen because the difference is slight. Stranger still, no law has ever made it the national flag. It earned that place through precedent alone. This documentary asks why a flag named for a small ship's banner flies over government buildings. It asks which of the four countries of the United Kingdom the design leaves out, and why. It also asks how a flag created to settle a dispute between sailors ended up woven into the flags of other nations.

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• 2. A Name With Many Origins

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  At the funeral of King James in 1625, the flag was called the Banner of the Union of the two Crosses of England and Scotland. The royal proclamation of 1606 that created it had given it no name at all. Early on, people simply spoke of the British flag or the flag of Britain. The word Union first attached itself to the flag in 1625.

  The word jack is far older than the flag. Middle Dutch used the ending -kin as a diminutive, and it joined Jan, the Dutch form of John, to make Janke. That passed into Middle French as Jakke and then into Middle English as Jack. John was already a general word for a man, so Jack came to label small things, or small versions of larger ones. The Oxford English Dictionary records that sense of something insignificant or smaller than normal in examples from 1530 to 2014.

  At sea, a jack was a ship's flag smaller than the ensign, flown from the bows to show a vessel's nationality. By 1627 a small Union Jack was commonly flown in that position. One theory holds that for some years it was simply called the Jack, or the King's Jack. By 1674 the flag was formally called His Majesty's Jack, yet it was commonly known as the Union Jack, and that name was officially acknowledged. A short pole was later fixed in the bows to carry it, and that pole became the jackstaff.

  In 1902 an Admiralty circular announced that either name could be used officially. By 1913, however, the Admiralty was describing the Union Flag and adding a footnote that a Jack is a flag flown only on the jackstaff. The Flag Institute, a membership-run charity devoted to the study of flags, calls the idea that only a warship's bow flag deserves the name Union Jack a relatively recent one. The authoritative guide A Complete Guide to Heraldry, published in 1909 by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, uses the term Union Jack throughout.

  The 1990 edition of Reed's Nautical Almanac declared that the Union Flag is frequently but incorrectly called the Union Jack. No edition since 1993 repeats that claim. A proclamation of George III in 1801 forbade merchant vessels from wearing "Our Jack, commonly called the Union Jack". Even so, after three centuries of use the name has been sanctioned by Parliament and remains the popular term.

  The origin of the name is still debated. The size and reach of the Royal Navy may explain it, since the jackstaff carried the flag on so many ships. Another suggestion points to the jack-et worn by English or Scottish soldiers. A third points to James I himself, who originated the first union in 1603.

  Winston Churchill, writing to his mother from India in March 1899, teased her about her plan for a magazine called The Anglo-Saxon Review. He joked that its title and motto needed only "the Union Jack & the Star Spangled Banner crossed on the cover" to suit one of Harmsworth's cheap Imperialist productions. The letter shows that the name was already ordinary speech for the future Prime Minister.

  The Butcher's Apron is the name some Irish republicans use. They point to the blood-streaked look of the flag and to atrocities committed in Ireland and elsewhere under British colonial rule. In 2006 Sandra White, a Member of the Scottish Parliament, caused a furore when the term appeared in a press release under her name. The comment was blamed on a researcher, who resigned while claiming that White had approved it. The Irish folk band the Wolfe Tones have a song called The Butcher's Apron.

  In Chinese the flag is known as the Rice-Character Flag, mǐzìqí in Mandarin. The pattern of crossed lines looks like the character 米, which means rice.

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• 3. Two Crosses at Sea

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  When James VI of Scotland inherited the English crown in 1603 as James I, he ruled the whole island of Great Britain. He often described it as one unified kingdom, though the English and Scottish parliaments did not merge until 1707.

  Several designs for a shared flag were drawn up soon afterwards, setting St George's Cross beside St Andrew's Saltire. None satisfied James, and they were rarely if ever used. One version put St Andrew's Cross in the canton of St George's Cross, and another placed the two crosses side by side. A painted wooden ceiling boss from Linlithgow Palace, dated to about 1617, shows the Scottish royal unicorn holding a flag on which a blue saltire sits over the red cross of St George.

  The decision came on the 12th of April 1606, in a royal decree. It said that differences had arisen between subjects of South and North Britain travelling by sea over how to bear their flags. All subjects were to carry in their main-top the red and white crosses "joyned together according to the forme made by our heralds". In the fore-top, South Britons would wear the red cross alone and North Britons the white cross alone.

  The new flag was at first meant only for civil and military ships. Land forces kept their own national banners. Confusion followed, because a national flag at the mainmast had signified the Admiral of the Narrow Seas, an office tied to the English Channel. Some captains also used the flag without permission to avoid harbour duties, a privilege reserved for naval ships. In 1634 Charles I answered by restricting it to Royal Navy ships, on "pain of Our high displeasure".

  Scottish shipowners objected almost at once. Owners and masters of merchant vessels raised their complaint with John Erskine, 19th Earl of Mar, who encouraged them to write to James VI through the Privy Council of Scotland. Their letter argued that the Scottish cross, in their words, was "twyse divydit", while the English cross was drawn whole across it. They said no sign of the Scottish arms could be seen, and that seafaring men would not accept the flag. The alternative drafts that accompanied the letter have been lost.

  Evidence survives of an unofficial Scottish variant with the Scottish cross uppermost. Cloth flags of this design were probably used on Scottish ships in the 17th century. The 1704 edition of John Beaumont's The Present State of the Universe describes the design. John Slezer's engraving of Edinburgh Castle, from his Theatrum Scotiae of about 1693, shows it flying from the Palace block.

  On the 17th of April 1707, two weeks before the Acts of Union took effect, Sir Henry St George the younger, the Garter King of Arms, presented several designs to Queen Anne and her Privy Council. At the suggestion of Scottish representatives, the options included the version with St Andrew's Cross on top, labelled the "Scotts union flagg as said to be used by the Scotts". The Queen and her Council approved Sir Henry's own design, numbered one. The flag became the ensign armorial of the new Kingdom of Great Britain and was soon adopted by land forces, whose blue resembled the blue of Scotland's flag.

  A manuscript compiled in 1785 by William Fox, held by the Flag Research Center, includes a full plate of "the scoth union" flag. That suggests some Scottish use lingered until the next change. The only contemporary official representation of the pre-1801 flag in the United Kingdom still flies in the canton of the Commissioners' Ensign of the Northern Lighthouse Board, at its George Street headquarters in Edinburgh.

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• 4. Questions of Representation

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  On the 1st of January 1801, George III proclaimed a new flag after the Act of Union 1800 merged the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Ireland had been joined to England in a personal union since 1541, yet it had no place in the original flag. The flag of the Protectorate from 1658 to 1660 carried the arms of Ireland, but they were removed at the Restoration because Charles II found them offensive. The 1801 design finally added a red saltire for Ireland, the cross of St Patrick. That cross comes from the arms of the Old English FitzGerald family rather than directly from the saint. It was counterchanged with St Andrew's saltire, so the red always follows the white clockwise. Today the three crosses stand for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

  The Anglo-Irish Treaty, concluded on the 6th of December 1921, raised the question of whether St Patrick's cross should stay. On the 22nd of January 1922, The New York Times reported that modifications were under consideration at the College of Arms, and that the King in Council could act without Parliament. Heraldry experts warned that alterations to arms were expensive. An earlier demand to change the blue ground of the harp on the royal standard to green had been estimated at no less than £2,000,000. A New Zealand paper predicted that removing the cross after 120 years would transform the flag's appearance and bring a great sentimental loss.

  In December 1921, Sir James Craig, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, said he was "glad to think that our decision to remain part of United Kingdom will obviate the necessity of mutilating the Union Jack." His own government nonetheless set aside the St Patrick's saltire for a new flag drawn from the arms of the Burkes, Earls of Ulster, quite similar to St George's Cross. On the 7th of December 1922, the day after the Irish Free State was established, the British home secretary was asked whether the Garter King of Arms would issue flag regulations. The answer was no, and the flag has never been changed. In 1961 a question in the Dáil raised the matter again. Frank Aiken, the Irish Minister for External Affairs, declined to "waste time on heraldic disputations".

  Wales appears nowhere in the design. When the flag of Great Britain was created in 1606, Wales counted as an integral part of the Kingdom of England, having been annexed under the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535 and 1542. On the 26th of November 2007, Ian Lucas, the Labour MP for Wrexham, told the House of Commons that the flag represented only the other three nations. He proposed combining it with the Welsh flag, adding the red dragon to the red, white and blue pattern. Margaret Hodge, the culture minister, conceded that he had raised a valid point for debate. She said the government wanted the Union Flag to be "a positive symbol of Britishness reflecting the diversity of our country today and encouraging people to take pride in our flag." The exchange sparked design contests, with entries from all over the world.

  Before the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, unofficial suggestions circulated for a flag without the St Andrew's Cross, in case Scotland left the Union. Scotland voted against independence, so the question never arose.

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• 5. Reading the Design

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  The blue of the current flag is Pantone 280 C, a deep navy traced to the Blue Ensign of the Royal Navy's historic Blue Squadron. Dark shades were used on maritime flags because they lasted longer. The red is Pantone 186 C. The proclamation of 1801 named only azure, argent and gules, so the Garter King of Arms, under the Earl Marshal, later approved exact shades. Blue is 1, 33, 105 in RGB decimal, and red is 200, 16, 46.

  In 2003 a committee of the Scottish Parliament recommended that the flag of Scotland use a lighter royal blue, Pantone 300. The Office of the Lord Lyon does not set specific shades in heraldry.

  A thin white edge, called a fimbriation, separates the red cross from the blue field. It follows the heraldic rule of tincture, which keeps colours such as red and blue apart with a metal such as white. The red saltire is edged in the same way. That white edging is repeated on the white part of the saltire for symmetry, which makes the white look wider. The fimbriation of St George's cross keeps its red from touching the red of the saltire.

  In 1864 the Admiralty settled all official flags at proportions of 1:2, and most Union Jacks are twice as long as they are tall. The relative widths of the crosses stayed unspecified until conventions were standardised in the 20th century. Land flags in the United Kingdom are normally 3:5, and the Garter King of Arms suggests that ratio for a Union Flag flown on land. The British Army's war flag uses it too. In the 3:5 version, the innermost points of the lower left and upper right diagonals of St Patrick's Cross are cut off. The Royal Navy's flag code book, BR20 Flags of All Nations, lists both ratios as official.

  The saltires pinwheel slightly, so the flag has no reflection symmetry. It has two-fold rotational symmetry, and the only other national flag with that quality is that of Trinidad and Tobago. A convention arose soon after 1801 that fits the description best. In the upper hoist canton, the quarter nearest the pole at the top, the white of St Andrew sits above the red of St Patrick. The phrases "wide white top" and "broadside up" capture the rule. The Irish saltire is deliberately depressed at the hoist end, to give seniority to the earlier union with Scotland. An upside-down flag must be turned over, because rotating it 180 degrees leaves it still wrong.

  The proclamation of the 1st of January 1801 included no drawing. The first drawn pattern came in a parallel proclamation of the same day, concerning civil naval ensigns, which showed the red ensign. In the London Gazette printing, three quarters show the broad stripe where convention later placed it. The upper left quarter shows it below.

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• 6. Law and Custom

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  In 1908 a government minister, answering a parliamentary question, said that "the Union Jack should be regarded as the National flag". That is the first recorded recognition of its standing. In 1933 Home Secretary Sir John Gilmour went further, stating that "the Union Flag is the national flag and may properly be flown by any British subject on land." The Court of the Lord Lyon, which has legal jurisdiction over heraldry in Scotland, calls it the correct flag for citizens and corporate bodies "to demonstrate their loyalty and their nationality."

  On the 5th of February 2008, Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell introduced the Union Flag Bill under the Ten Minute Rule. It sought to make the flag's status as national flag formal in law and to remove legal obstacles to its regular display. The bill did not receive a second reading before the end of that parliamentary session.

  There are no national regulations on how the flag is used, and no prohibition on flag desecration. The Flags Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000 cover when the flag flies on government buildings there, when it flies at half-mast, and how it sits with other flags. In 2010 the Flags and Heraldry Committee, an all-party parliamentary group lobbying for official standards, worked with the Flag Institute on recommended guidelines. There is no specific way to fold the flag. It is usually folded in rectangles with the hoist outside, so it can be reattached easily to the pole.

  Royal Navy Stores Duties Instructions, article 447, dated the 26th of February 1914, ordered that condemned flags be torn into small pieces and discarded as rags. They were not to be used for decoration or sold. Flags that had flown in action were exempt, and could be framed and kept on board or sent to a suitable place such as a museum.

  At sea the rules are strict. Civilians may use the flag on land, but the unmodified flag is restricted to military vessels. Under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, displaying it from a British ship is a criminal offence, other than the pilot jack. Naval ships fly the white ensign, merchant and private boats may fly the red ensign, and bodies with special permission, such as naval yacht clubs, fly the blue ensign. All of these ensigns contain the Union Flag.

  Commissioned warships and submarines of the Royal Navy, and commissioned army and Royal Air Force vessels, use the Union Jack as a jack. At anchor or alongside, it flies from the jackstaff. Underway, it flies there only when the ship is dressed for an occasion such as the King's official birthday. Flown at a ship's masthead, it shows that an Admiral of the Fleet is aboard. On the day a court-martial sits, it is hoisted and a gun is fired.

  The Pilot Jack, a Union Flag with a white border, dates to 1823, when it was created as a signal flag. A book issued to British consuls in 1855 says it is to be hoisted for a pilot. In 1970 it stopped being the pilot signal. The Merchant Shipping Act 1995, consolidating a 1993 Act, still treats it as a flag that may be flown on a merchant ship.

  In 1938 the British Army devised a Non-Ceremonial Flag showing a crowned golden lion, statant guardant, over two crossed swords on red. It serves at recruiting and sporting events, where the reverence due to the Union Jack and regimental colours would feel out of place. The official order of flags in the United Kingdom places the Royal Standards first, then the Union Flag, then the flag of the host country. After those come the flags of other nations in English alphabetical order, the Commonwealth Flag, county flags, city or town flags, banners of arms and house flags.

  In July 2007 Prime Minister Gordon Brown unveiled plans to fly the flag more often from government buildings. Before that, it flew mainly on royal birthdays, the monarch's wedding anniversary, Commonwealth Day, Remembrance Sunday and the State Opening of Parliament. In March 2021 the government published guidance encouraging the flag to fly all year on its buildings. Current guidance, first published in February 2013 and last updated in January 2026, names set days for flying it. These include Commonwealth Day on the second Monday in March, Remembrance Sunday and the King's actual birthday on the 14th of November.

  Some days are local. Government buildings in Wales fly it on the 1st of March, St David's Day. Northern Ireland does so on the 17th of March, St Patrick's Day. In Scotland on the 30th of November, St Andrew's Day, the Union Flag flies only where a building has more than one flagpole. The Saltire is not lowered for it when there is just one pole, a rule that came after members of the Scottish Parliament complained that Scotland alone could not fly its national flag on its national day. On the 23rd of April, St George's Day, the Union Flag is what flies over government offices in England.

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• 7. Flag of the Empire

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  Until 1953 the Union Flag served formally as Australia's national flag, ranking above the Australian Blue Ensign, which governments used and ordinary people embraced informally. Schools were encouraged to fly it to build loyalty to the British Empire. From 1911 to 1956 South Australia required students to fly it for the national salute. The Flags Act of 1953 designated the Blue Ensign the Australian National Flag. Since some still thought of the Union Jack as the national flag, the Act said it did not affect anyone's right or privilege to fly it. Prime Minister Robert Menzies added that the Union Flag would fly beside the national flag "on notable occasions". By the 1980s most Australians saw the Blue Ensign as their national flag.

  After the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in February 1840, the Union Flag became the flag of New Zealand, replacing the flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand. Whether the United Tribes flag could fly beside the Union Jack as a sign of equal standing helped cause the Flagstaff War, led by the Ngāpuhi chief Hōne Heke. British maritime flags served New Zealand vessels until 1865. After the Colonial Naval Defence Act 1865, government vessels used a defaced blue ensign. The New Zealand Ensign Act of 1902 gave the current national flag official standing, though the Union Flag kept appearing beside it into the 1950s.

  Canada kept the Union Jack as its official flag when New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the Province of Canada formed the Canadian Confederation in 1867. A red ensign carrying the arms of Canada was authorised in 1892 as the civil ensign, and it came to be seen as a de facto national flag. In 1964 Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson proposed a new national flag, which set off the Great Canadian flag debate. Parliament approved the Maple Leaf on the 18th of December 1964. The next day, it passed another resolution designating the Union Flag as the Royal Union Flag, a symbol of Canada's membership in the Commonwealth of Nations and its allegiance to the Crown. On the 15th of February 1965, a proclamation by Elizabeth II made the maple leaf flag official.

  The parliamentary resolution gave the Royal Union Flag two roles in Canada, and precedence depends on which role applies. When it represents the United Kingdom, it ranks before provincial and territorial flags. As a ceremonial flag of Canada, it ranks after them. It flies beside the national flag on federal properties on Commonwealth Day, Victoria Day and the 11th of December, the anniversary of the Statute of Westminster, 1931. This applies only where there are at least two flagpoles, so that the national flag is never taken down for it. The Dominion of Newfoundland legislated the Union Flag as its national flag in 1931. It remained the provincial flag until 1980, when a new Newfoundland flag derived from it was adopted.

  South Africa's colonies had flown the Union Jack since 1795, and the Union of South Africa kept it as its official flag after its formation in 1910. In 1927 the Union Nationality and Flag Act named both the Union Jack and the Oranje, Blanje, Blou as flags of the Union, co-equal in status. The act took effect on the 31st of May 1928. Both flags flew at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the supreme courts, customs houses and three buildings in Durban, among other places. The two flags had to be the same size, so the Union Jack was made in the ratio 2:3 rather than the usual 1:2. The Flags Amendment Act of 1957 named the Oranje, Blanje, Blou as the sole flag, and in 1994 even that flag was replaced.

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• 8. Echoes and Protest

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  Fiji, Tuvalu, Australia and New Zealand each still carry the Union Jack on their national flags. Australia, New Zealand and Tuvalu kept the monarchy, while Fiji abolished it in 1987. The list of places that once flew it in their flags is long. It includes Aden, Burma, Ceylon, Cyprus, the Gold Coast, Malta, Singapore, Uganda and the United States. As nations gained independence, these versions were retired. The most recent retirement came on the 1st of July 1997, when Hong Kong was handed over to the People's Republic of China.

  The Union Jack is the national flag of the British Overseas Territories. Most have a Blue or Red Ensign defaced with the arms of the territory, and all fly the Union Jack in some form except Gibraltar, apart from its government ensign. The Crown Dependencies are legally not part of the United Kingdom, and the Union Jack is not an official flag there. When the Union Jack and a territorial flag fly together, the national flag takes precedence.

  Australia shows how deeply the design can embed. The flags of all six states keep the Union Jack in the canton, as do the Royal Australian Navy Ensign, the Royal Australian Air Force Ensign, the Australian Red Ensign and the Civil Aviation Ensign. British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario defile their flags with it in Canada. The Basque flag, the Ikurriña, is loosely based on it, reflecting commercial ties between Bilbao and Britain when it was designed in 1894. The Miskito people of the Mosquito Coast sometimes use a flag with the Union Jack in its canton.

  The Continental Union Flag, the de facto first national flag of the United States from July 1776 to June 1777, had the pre-1801 Union Jack in its canton. The historical Kingdom of Hawaii adopted a flag featuring the Union Jack, and Hawaii kept it when it became a US state in 1959. It is the only current use of the Union Jack in any American state flag. It also appears in the flag of Baton Rouge in Louisiana, a British colony until Spanish forces captured it. Taunton, Massachusetts, has used a defaced Red Ensign with the old-style Union Jack since 1974. The flag of the Chilean city of Coquimbo carries it too, owing to historical commercial links to Britain.

  South Africa's flag of 1928-1994 placed the Union Jack at the centre of its design, beside the flags of the two Boer republics. The Union Jack was spread horizontally from the Orange Free State flag toward the hoist, but reversed, so it did not take precedence over the others. The present flag keeps a nod to it in its red, white and blue.

  In Hong Kong the Union Flag ceased to be official after the handover of July 1997, yet it reappeared during the 2014 Hong Kong protests and the 2019-20 protests. It was seen at new year marches and the marches held on the 1st of July. Its meaning was disputed. Some protestors flew foreign flags to attract international media attention, and others to irritate the central government of China. Some used it to show a wish for Hong Kong to be an "international city", or simply as a symbol of freedom. Others were nostalgic for colonial "personal freedoms, rule of law, and clean governance". A few called on Britain to declare that China had failed to uphold the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Several holders of British National (Overseas) passports hoped to win the right of abode in the United Kingdom. The great majority did not seek direct British intervention. China's central government has cited foreign flags as evidence of foreign interference, and some pro-democracy protestors criticised their use for supporting that claim.

  In August 2016, after Britain voted to leave the European Union, many businesses along the Italian riviera hoisted the Union Flag. They were protesting the implementation of the Services in the Internal Market Directive 2006, and the flag became a symbol of euroscepticism in Italy.

  In September 2025 the Union Jack and the England flag grew visible across the United Kingdom, in what was described as a flag phenomenon. The first major display came in Weoley Castle, a Birmingham neighbourhood of largely postwar council homes. It drew wide media attention after local authorities in Birmingham and York ordered the removal of British flags while allowing Palestine flags to remain, prompting public backlash. More than four centuries after the decree of 1606, the flag still stirs argument in the country that created it.

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