HOW THE UNION JACK ORIGINATED.

Matamata Record, Volume II, Issue 80, 2 May 1918, Page 4

HOW THE UNION JACK ORIGINATED.

In the first place, it should be explained that the name “Union Jack,” is more often than not wrongly applied. This name really belongs to a miniature union flag, displayed from a stall at the end of the bowspit on His Majesty’s ships, and known for many years past as a jack; whence the name of “Union Jack,” which lias come to be wrongly applied to the larger ns well as the smaller Union Flag, the correct name when displayed otherwise than on His Majesty’s ships. The jack, properly so called, is never flown on shore. Until the fifteenth centuty, England, Scotland, and Ireland had separate flags. The English flag consisted of the Red Cross of St. George on a white ground, that of Scotland the white dia. gonal cross of St. Andrew on a blue ground, and that of Ireland the red diagonal cross of St. Patrick, also on a white ground, and it is from a combination of these three flags that we get the “Union Jack.” It was James I. who first began the formation of the Union Jack, by combining the crosses of St. George and St. Andrews, and thus formed the Union Jack, which was the national flag for 200 years. It was after the Union of 1801 that the cross of St. Patrick was added, though in this case the diagonal red stripes were narrowed down in order that they would not obliterate tlis white stripes of St. Andrew’s cross. It will thus be noticed that the latter shows on either side of the cross of St. Patrick, while the narrow white margin round the inside of the cross of St. George was added to separate the red of the cross from the blue field of the flag. It will be noticed, too, en looking at the Union Jack that the Scottish and Irish crosses are so arranged that in the first and thirddivisions, counting from left to right, the white of Scotland has precedence, while in the second and fourth the red of Ireland is uppermost. The easiest rule to remember in dis£ playing a Union Jack is that the bro|d diagonal white stripe, the St. Andrew's cross, should he uppermost in the fim and third quarters, i.e., nearest tfe| staff, and the red diagonal St. M rick’s cross uppermost in the aeiom and fourth quarters.