Bailiwick of Guernsey

Last modified: 2023-07-03 by
Keywords: guernsey | alderney | sark | herm | brechou | jethou | lions | dolphins | monks | cross: st george |
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• Guernsey
  • Description of the flag
  • Guernsey's ensign
  • Flag of Guernsey in 1863
• Alderney
• Sark
  • Alternative Sark flag
  • Seigneur of Sark's personal flag
  • Isle of Sark Shipping Company house flag
  • Possible Red Ensign for Sark?
  • Brechou: personal flag
• Herm
• Jethou
• Construction sheets for Guernsey flags

See also:

• Dependencies of the Crown

The flag is white with St George Cross, and a cross with ends pattée - a cross which appears on a gonfanon of William the Conqueror on the Bayeux tapestry. There is also a red ensign, with this cross in the fly.
Pascal Vagnat, 14 March 1996

The gold equal-armed cross overlaying the red cross was added to the flag in 1985 to distinguish it from England's. The gold cross also appears in the fly of the Guernsey Red Ensign. The Lieutenant-Governor's flag is as Jersey's except that Guernsey's arms are distinguished from those of Jersey (and England) by the addition of a golden sprig of leaves issuing from the top of the shield.

Guernsey has two dependencies: Alderney and Sark. Alderney has its own States and Sark has a Court of Chief Pleas as its legislature. Both have representation on the States of Guernsey. Herm also has a degree of independence as a feudal tenancy leased from the States of Guernsey.
Roy Stilling, 14 March 1996

Sark does not have representation in the States of Guernsey but Alderney does have two representatives, (I know, as I am one of them). Secondly Herm is indeed tenanted, but does not follow the feudal system. For administrative purposes it is included in the town parish of St Peter Port and its inhabitants are able to vote for candidates in that parish for election as peoples deputies in the States of Guernsey. Finally, Alderney is not a Seignory. It has had a democratically elected States for many years and very few remnants of feudal law are left.
Bill Walden, Alderney States Member, 26 January 2002

Doctors in Guernsey seem to have had an interest in flags. In 1905 the Medical Officer of Guernsey wrote asking what was the correct flag to fly ashore. The Home Office replied that no particular flag was defined by warrant and that the matter was left to custom and good taste, adding that the Union Flag, or Union Jack, had been used indiscriminately for a very long period throughout Great Britain.

Then in 1924 a doctor at the Health Office in Guernsey wrote asking if the St George's cross flag could be flown from the stern of a vessel. The Naval Law Branch investigated and were surprised to find that, in Guernsey, due to an error, a white flag with a red St George's cross could be flown as an ensign.

In 1906 Guernsey had applied to the Home Office to use certain arms and also the flag of St George. The Home Office were interested only in the arms and not in the flag. The arms were submitted to the King for his approval and the Lt-Governor of Guernsey was then told that, "the King had been pleased to approve his proposals." The Governor interpreted this as meaning that the flag had also been authorised. This was an embarrassing mistake and the Home Office "admitted the blunder and hoped to be excused from glossing it officially." The Admiralty ruled that only the plain Red Ensign could be flown by Guernsey vessels.
Public Record Office HO 45/10061/B2262 and ADM 1/8667/165.
David Prothero, 31 January 2001

by Vincent Morley

by António Martins

The checkered flag of Guernsey in 1863 was featured on the cover of The Flag Bulletin, 171, November-December 1996. It looks a like the White Ensign with squares, like on a picnic tablecloth.
Steve Stringfellow, 21 January 1997

The following is from The Flag Bulletin, XXXV:5/171 (1996.09-10), p.197:

Prior to the creation in 1985 of the current Guernsey flag, the Cross of St. George had been flown on the island for an indeterminate time as its local flag. However, during the 19th century a different flag seems to have been in use as well - an ensign with the Union Jack as a canton and a (?red) cross on a chequered field. The cover illustration of this flag is based on a contemporary engraving ('Unveiling the Albert Statue at Guernsey 8 October 1836' from Barbet's Almanack 1864). Design details are not entirely certain: one writer refers to '96 black and white cheques', another to 'Mr. Tupper's blue and white chequered flag'.

At this week's meeting of the History Section of La Société Jersiaise, a member brought along a piece of crested china with the chequered Guernsey flag. The flag does appear to have existed.
Geraint Jennings, 19 April 2000

by Vincent Morley

The flag is white with a St George Cross and the badge of the island in the middle.
Pascal Vagnat, 14 March 1996

The badge is a green disc bearing a crowned gold lion rampant holding a sprig of leaves. The badge has a sort of scrolled border, in gold.
Roy Stilling, 14 March 1996

by Vincent Morley

Sark (in French Serq) is one of the Channel Islands in the English Channel. It comprises Great Sark and Little Sark connected by an isthmus. The flag which is at the same time the flag of the island and the flag of the Seigneur, is white with a red St-George cross and a red canton containing two yellow lions. It has the proportions 1:2. This canton is like the arms of Normandy, not far from Sark.
Pascal Vagnat, 14 March 1996

A 1994 item in Flagmaster says that doubt has been cast upon the story told to the Flag Institute by Dame Sybil Hathaway that the flag had been in use 'for at least two hundred years'. Apparently, it only dates from 1938 when she contacted Mr Herbert Pitt (a member of the pre-war Flag Circle) who designed it for her. The Société Serquaise has a record of the correspondence.
David Prothero, 20 June 1997

While browsing your flags pages, I thought that the Sark flag (by Vincent Morley) looked very odd, as the two yellow lions are not completely within the red canton but have escaped into the cross. I found the Sark flag on the Sark Government site (http://www.sark.gov.gg/) and the lions are shown as completely within the canton, above the thickness of the cross.
Chris Dawe, 3 August 2003

This was raised on the List recently (4-6 June 2003) when Nathan Lamm asked if there was a reason why the Sark lions/leopards 'intruded' onto the St George's Cross. I noted that the Sark flag shown on the Sark government website was indeed different - and suggested that they'd got it wrong. I was about to reply to this latest query to say that every website that I could find and every book which I knew about showed the Sark flag as we have it and (while I would be the first to agree that ubiquity doesn't guarantee correctness) the most likely explanation was that the Sark website had made a minor error.

However, on http://www.sark.info/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.archive_detail¶id=497 there is a photo of two Sark flags which are different - one like FOTW's and one like the one on the Sark government website. There is also mention of a new Seigneur's flag which is simply the two leopards/lions in gold on a red field. I have e-mailed the Seigneur to ask for clarification/details ...
André Coutanche, 19 August 2003

You are not the only one who is confused. The flags have not been officially registered or codified though this is currently underway by a committee of Chief Pleas with the aim of allowing it to be flown at sea. As you say, it is sometimes shown with the lions/leopards down into the red cross and sometimes not. It was first adopted as the Sark flag when the Inter-Island Games started some years ago and it was necessary for Sark to be recognised by a flag and I suggested they used what had up to then been just the Seigneur's Standard. The all-red standard is seldom flown and has not been registered with the College of Heralds. It was made as a suggestion by the Flag Institute after Sark adopted the previous Seigneur's standard and there is only one in existence. Sark is very laid back about such details!
Michael Beaumont [Seigneur of Sark], 25 August 2003

The Island Games started in 1985, but apparently Sark first participated in the second games, organised in 1987 close by on Guernsey.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 25 August 2003

We have now resolved the apparent contradiction that some of the literature states that the "Two lions on red on the St George's Cross" flag is the personal flag of the Seigneur, whereas it has clearly been used both in Sark and "abroad" as the island flag. We also now know that it "officially" passed from being the Seigneur's flag to the island flag at the suggestion of the Seigneur and that this was in the second half of the 80s. We now know that there are at least two (island) flags and that they differ in the placing of the lions - and that nobody minds very much.
André Coutanche, 28 August 2003

by André Coutanche, based on Vincent Morley's original

Seigneur of Sark's personal flag

by André Coutanche

Isle of Sark Shipping Company house flag

by André Coutanche

Possible Red Ensign for Sark?

This piece of information comes from the Sark government website concerning a possible future red ensign for Sark (www.sark.gov.gg/static/0304agenda.htm and www.sark.gov.gg/static/0304ensign.htm).

GENERAL PURPOSES & FINANCE COMMITTEE REPORT

TO THE EASTER CHIEF PLEAS MEETING 2003

ON

Sark's own Defaced Red Ensign.

Following the approval of the Projet de Loi entitled `The Merchant Shipping (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2002', at the Extraordinary Chief Pleas Meeting of March 2003, members discussed whether in fact further investigation should take place regarding Sark applying for its own Defaced Red Ensign, which this Committee stated in its Report was a separate issue and should not delay the approval of the Projet. It was felt by members that this issue should be investigated further; therefore the Committee propose the following,

That Chief Pleas authorise the Sark Harbours Committee to investigate the possibility of Sark applying to have its own Defaced Red Ensign and report back to Chief Pleas in due course with their conclusions.

Deputy Adrian.L.Guille President

by Jaume Ollé

There was also a flag granted to the former owner of Brechou, a minor island in the jurisdiction of Guernsey, by the Lord Lyon King of Arms during the 1980s. I have no more details to hand, except that this is a personal flag of the individual in question, rather than a flag of the island and was taken by the former owner with him when he sold the island on.
Roy Stilling, 14 March 1996

It was warranted on 23 November 1967 by Lord Lyon. It's the same as the flag of Sark with the two lions confined to the inner canton of the flag and not dispersed over the left arm of the St George's cross as well as the canton, and with the shield of Brechou in the lower fly canton. I can't described it very well: roughly, there are three sea-gulls(?) over two and two half vair over three trefoils. I don't know the colours. There is a black and white drawing in Flagmaster 75/76.
David Prothero, 31 March 1998

In an approximately-coloured drawing I received from Derkwillem Visser, there are: two (not three) white rectangles (sea-gulls?) on a red field in the top of the shield; two white vair over two and half blue vair in the centre part of the shield; three green trefoils (two over one) on a yellow field in the lower part of the shield. As Roy (and Flagmaster 075/076) pointed out, this was presumably the personal flag of the previous owner of the island as it shows the coat of arms of the Matchan family.
Armand Noel du Payrat, 31 March 1998

by Jaume Ollé

The arms are azure, between two dolphins argent a bend or bearing three cowled monks sable - i.e. a blue field with a silver heraldic dolphin (looking nothing like the aquatic mammal of the same name!) in the bottom left and top right. From top left to bottom right there is a yellow diagonal stripe bearing three cowled monks in black robes. I believe this may also be a personal, not an island flag.
Roy Stilling, 14 March 1996

Flagmaster no. 43 gave news of the adoption of the flag. The ratio is 3:5. It is the usual Cross of Saint George, also used by Guernsey, with a banner of the arms of Herm in the canton. The blue symbolizes the sea that surrounds the island, and the yellow the island itself. The three monks are a reference to the past, since the island was colonized by Benedictine monks from Mont-Saint-Michel in the 11th century and later by Augustinians; for some time Herm was the site of a monastery and monks lived alone on the island. The shield of Herm was adopted in 1953, designed by the Reverend Percival of Guernsey. Around 1951 the island used a blue flag with the heraldic shield of Guernsey near the hoist (three leopards in red field with a green foliage above and the words 'HERM ISLAND' below).
Jaume Ollé, 1 October 1996

According to The Complete Guide to Flags the flag of Herm is depicted with a bend argent (a 'silver' or white diagonal band running from top left to bottom right corners) in the upper hoist canton. It does not seem as though this follows Reverend Percival's 1953 coat-of-arms which apparently employed the heraldic metal or (gold or yellow). This source of information should be considered authoritative because the book's author, William Crampton, himself designed the flag of Herm. On page 25, Herm's flag is clearly shown bearing a bend argent. There always remains the slight possibility that any discrepancy in coloration is due to a printer's error - there is no full textual description of the colour scheme provided. It is also possible that, through popular usage, the colour has changed.
M. Breier, 17 June 1999

by Jaume Ollé

The Shield of Jethou from a bicoloured postage stamp. The colours be considered as "probable" but they are unsure. In the stamp the shield is shown only in blue and white. No flag is known for the island.
Jaume Ollé, 6 February 2000

Jethou is one of the Channel Islands, Guernsey Bailiwick, just south of Herm. area 44 acres (36 hectare) and uninhabited. Nearby are two (much smaller) off-shore islands, Crevichon and Grande Fauconnière, a bird-sanctuary. The islands are property of the Crown. Previous tenants of the Manor House on Jethou have included Sir Compton Mackenzie, who lived in it for fifteen years.
Jarig Bakker, 6 February 2000

Jethou is leased from the Crown (unlike neighbouring Herm which is leased from the States of Guernsey). The tenant may or may not live there full-time, and may or may not allow visitors to land.

Jethou doesn't have its own postage stamps. The postal authority is the Guernsey Post Office and the stamp which Jaume saw is presumably a Guernsey stamp. Probably it was one of a set with the CoAs of all the islands in the Bailiwick.

It's a while since I visited, so I stand to be corrected, but I don't remember a Jethou flag. Then again, I don't know where the CoA came from either! The design and the motto (Watch and Warn if my Latin is up to it) suggests sea-marks in a tricky bit of water with a very large tidal range. The lion is presumably from the Guernsey (and English) CoA, with the leaf on the top which distinguishes the Guernsey CoA from the otherwise identical ones of Jersey and England.
André Coutanche, 7 February 2000

The source for this coat of arms is a postage stamp of Jethou. In 1960 there were attempts to encourage tourism to the minor islands. A coffee shop and a gift shop were set up on the island to accommodate visitors, but the lack of sandy beaches was primarily responsible for making it a flop. At that time (1960s), both Jethou and Lihou were permitted to issue their own local stamps. I think Brecqhou and Burhou also were, though I am not sure. That privilege was rescinded in 1970.
Chris Kretowicz, 9 April 2001

My name is Mrs Susan Summers, previously Mrs Angus Faed. From 29th September 1964 to 6th December 1971 I was the twenty-second tenant of the Island of Jethou. I thought you might like to know about the "Jethou flag". As you so rightly guessed, there is no registered flag, the design you have was put together by the 21st tenant, when he wrote a guide book about the Island. At the time, he informed us that it was "heraldically" correct. We did not seek to verify this; my husband corrected a minor spelling error in the Latin wording and used it, this time in black and white, in his updated revised, "Jethou Island Guide and History". During our years there, one of our staff and myself made a flag, which flew proudly from the ferry boat we had had built especially to carry our very many summer visitors. Which brings me to the entry where you say, quote "lack of sandy beaches were primarily responsible for making it a flop". Wrong, we did a very creditable trade, weather allowing, and I have to tell you, slices of our victoria sandwich cake were in heavy demand! On frequent occasions whole cakes would be purchased from the café and the staff were kept on their toes baking more, as well as serving fresh crab and lobster salads (shell fish were cooked on the premises). I held a café and restaurant licence issued by the Guernsey court ...

Now the Jethou flag, I think it really didn't exist as such, I have a notoriously bad memory but I don't think the flag we flew from the Jethou passenger boat La Barbelotte (it translates to Puffin [in Guernsey-French - Ed.]), had any resemblance to the picture on your web site as I said it was an entirely "home spun" affair and constructing a full blown flag incorporating the entire CoA would have not been within our capabilities, especially as it would have had to stand up to a fair amount of wear flying as it did from the stern of the boat, I am sorry if this rather spoils your expectations of everything. With regard to subsequent tenants I really don't know if they had a flag of any sort, they may have done ... Also as far I know, I was the last tenant to allow visitors on the Island.
Susan Summers, 17 April 2003 and 20 April 2003

Guernsey flag

by André Coutanche

Guernsey Civil Ensign

by André Coutanche

The construction sheets are from the images originally made by Vincent Morley. I have reduced the length of the flag to give the correct 2:3 ratio specified in the construction sheet. The source is a leaflet published by the States of Guernsey.
André Coutanche, 4 February 2001