The Flag Badge (1871/76)

Between 1871 and 1876 the official flag badge of Hong Kong was therefore a white crown over the initials H.K., set in a Blue Ensign. Oddly enough, no local record of this flag has survived and it was with some surprise that it was recently learnt that such a flag had ever existed. Indeed as long ago as 1911, during a debate on the flag badge, the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Cecil Clementi (later Sir Cecil Clementi, K.C.M.G., Governor of Hong Kong), having examined the history of this matter "as recorded in the archives of my department'', referred to the proposal to approve this new flag badge and continued: "Then for some reason the whole matter appears suddenly to have fallen into abeyance. The new flags were never sent out and the existing flag remained as an enduring witness to the artistic standards of Wapping."

The Colonial Secretary's archives were seriously at fault, for there is now no doubt that the "Crown" badge was used in Hong Kong for about five years. To establish this, there is a record that on the 6th May 1873 the Governor (Sir A. E. Kennedy, K.C.M.G., C.B.) asked the Colonial Office to sanction an alteration to the Colony's flag, "as the flag now used, which has in the fly "H.K." under the Crown, is not only not well-looking but is misleading;" and proposed that the letters "H.K." be omitted and the Crown placed in the centre of the fly. The Admiralty, to whom the matter was referred, made some comments, but no final decision was reached on the proposal.

A number of other territories at that time had, and indeed some still have, a flag badge of this pattern: a Crown above the initial letters of the Colony. Based on these designs, a representation of a flag badge has now been constructed which probably resembles the Hong Kong flag badge of 1871/ 76. It is shown in Plate VI.