bout de papier, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2020), pp. 22–25
In 1965, the Maple Leaf replaced the Canadian Red Ensign as the national flag of Canada. Red Ensigns across the country were being retired. Two years later, I discovered a pristine example of what would turn out to be the first Canadian Red Ensign (circa 1868) hidden away in a small antique store in Quebec. This is the story of that flag’s recovery from obscurity, its authentication as a rare Canadian historical artefact, and the struggle to find it a place in Canada’s national heritage.
DURING A ROAD TRIP FROM HALIFAX to Expo ’67 in Montréal, I took a detour to visit a museum in Knowlton, Quebec, to see if they had on display any stoves or iron works produced at my family’s 19th century Wm. Clendenning foundry in Old Montreal. While touring the village, I happened upon an antique shop in which I spotted a large, immaculate, blood-red Ensign draped over a stair banister.
The flag displayed a canton of the Union Jack and, in the fly, a quartered shield containing the arms of the four original provinces (Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia), surmounted by the Royal Crown of Queen Victoria. The coat of arms of Ontario appeared to be particularly primitive, as if the designer of the flag was not sure what a maple leaf looked like. The cloth was in pristine condition with just a few small insect holes; it looked original and old. The construction of the Union Jack in the upper hoist consisted of individual pieces of red, white, and blue wool fabric, laboriously and precisely sewn together.
I could barely contain my excitement. As a university student of history at the time when the Red Ensign was replaced by the Maple Leaf, I was acutely aware of the Red Ensign’s history. It was the flag of my boyhood and its significance felt personal.
The asking price was $190 which, at the time, was not an insignificant amount; I had hoped to celebrate in style at Expo’67! However, I felt strongly that there was something special about this flag. Excitedly, I left the shop with my new purchase, protected in an acid-free box.
In the ensuing 40 years, I moved from Toronto to Ottawa and worked abroad as a member of Canada’s Trade Commissioner Service. The flag remained in storage in a military steel ammunition box which had belonged to my father. After my return to Canada in 1989 from my posting in Turkey, I happened across the flag while rifling through my stored belongings. I felt a rush of excitement and I decided that ! would do whatever research was necessary to confirm the flag’s authenticity, provenance, cultural importance and monetary value.
In November 2008, the Ottawa Public Library Foundation held a fundraising event — “An Evening with Sir John A.” — at the Chateau Laurier, Ottawa; historical material on Sir John A., including his portrait and several historic letters, were to be displayed in the lobby. The organizers asked me to include the Red Ensign in the exhibition. The restorer setting up the display prepared an independent condition report on the flag. which noted its excellent condition, size, and material texture, all of which proved to be extremely helpful in eventually determining the flag’s provenance.
Soon after the exhibition, I took the flag to the Canadian Conservation Institute to confirm its date and the material’s authenticity. The Institute took further steps to protect the four-by-seven-foot flag by placing it on acid-free tissue paper and carefully rolling it into a cylinder.
In July 2009, I presented the flag to the Anglican Bishop Ralph Spence in Hamilton, Ontario. Bishop Spence was closely associated with the Canadian Heraldry Authority and considered to be Canada’s definitive expert in the field of vexillology — the scientific study of flags. At that time, he possessed Canada’s foremost collection of old Canadian flags.
On seeing the flag for the first time, Bishop Spence exclaimed, “You have it!” He authenticated the artefact as an extremely rare Red Ensign, dating from shortly after May 1868, the year in which the quartered four-province Canadian badge first appeared. However, Bishop Spence decried the sad state of valuations of historical artefacts in Canada, especially textiles such as flags. A recent sale of a historically significant flag — an old Governor General flag — had fetched a mere $900.
Next, I contacted Andrew Gibbs — then, an independent appraiser at Heffel Fine Art auction house — to determine a fair market value for the flag. Due to the rarity of the flag and in order to arrive at a fair market value, I suggested that Gibbs search beyond Canada’s borders to find comparable flags of international importance.
In arriving at the appraisal price, Gibbs included the sale prices of other iconic flags: an early 19th-century Napoleonic service boat flag ($80,500); a silk sledging flag from Scott’s British Antarctic Expedition ($69,400); an 1862 Confederate battle flag ($94,300); an 18th-century Union flag, flown at Battle of the Glorious First of June ($91,000); a 12-star first national Confederate flag ($71,700); and a 34-star American national flag commemorating Kansas statehood ($53,775). An appraisal price of $50,000 was reached for the Red Ensign.
First, I offered the flag to the Government of Canada, but without proof that the flag had actually flown on Parliament Hill, the government would not take it. They suggested I contact the Canadian Museum of History, and I did so in May 2009. However, the Museum also declined, eventually informing me that it already had a comparable flag in its collection. My curiosity piqued, I asked to see the Museum’s flag.
The museum’s version (CMCC-SMCC No. 2007.79.1) and my Red Ensign were the same approximate size. They had been made in England at the same factory and appeared to be of the same period. Both flags had an orange tinge through the red colour, something that was not seen in later versions of the Red Ensign.
The differences were also pronounced: my Red Ensign was in pristine shape, while the Museum’s was worn and not in a good condition. The badge in the fly of my version was almost a third larger than the badge in the Museum’s. This and the orange tinge meant that arguably mine was a “prototype” and, thus, the “first” of the original Red Ensigns of 1868. No known extant object could compete with this identification to challenge its position as “Canada’s first Red Ensign”.
By then, I had become greatly attached to the flag, but I also thought it should have a better home, especially because it was a unique historical artefact from the first years of Canada’s nationhood and of great cultural interest to Canada. My search for an appropriate place for the flag continued.
Putting a price on a priceless artefact
After some further months, I determined that my only option was to auction the flag with the hope that it would remain in Canadian hands.
Following discussions with a few different auction houses, I decided on Sotheby’s for two reasons. Firstly, Sotheby’s was committed to selling Canadian art, but also occasionally sold important Canadian artefacts. A few years previously, the war club that the Shawnee warrior and chief, Tecumseh, presented to Major-General Sir Isaac Brock during the War of 1812, was offered for private sale to Canadian cultural institutions. I had been shocked to learn that the artefact was turned down; it ended up in the US With Sotheby’s auction house based in Toronto, I thought I had a fighting chance to keep the Red Ensign in Canada.
Secondly, at a private meeting at the Chateau Laurier, the president of Sotheby’s, David Silcox, agreed to undertake a major marketing initiative to promote the flag to their clients and the public, something other auction houses did not offer. We shook hands, drank a scotch, and I handed over my Red Ensign for Silcox to take back to Toronto.
Sotheby’s superb promotional efforts resulted in significant press coverage prior to the June 2010 auction in Toronto. The flag was displayed on several television shows; a highlight was David Silcox’s interview on CTV’s Canada AM -— then, Canada’s most-watched morning newsmagazine show. Silcox told how, for nearly a century, Canadians flew the Canadian Red Ensign to distinguish themselves from all others and it was the pretender to the national flag. The segment captured the importance of the Red Ensign in an emotional and patriotic way.
Canada under the Red Ensign
Normally, auction house catalogues print words in black on a white background. At the 2010 auction, the page was reversed to white text on a jet-black background, with the brilliant red of the flag placed across the top. The note gave not only an accurate description of the flag, but it also provided the story of the importance of the flag to Canadians and their national identity:
The Red Ensign, from which this historic flag was adapted, was the official flag of the British Merchant Marine. By definition, it was meant to be flown only by ships at sea. Early in the 17th century, it had been a flag of the Royal Navy, but King Charles II had confirmed it as the merchantmen 5 pennant in 1674. The Hudson > Bay Company, chartered in 1670 and the oldest commercial corporation in the Americas, therefore flew it aboard their ships.
[…] The Red Ensign had crept almost surreptitiously inland all along the eastern seaboard over the years prior to Confederation and was already in use by merchantmen in Canada, a use that was finally made official under a British Admiralty warrant issued in 1892. Local versions of the Ensign were allowed. The adaptation of the Red Ensign in Canada with this 1868 version, therefore, was never made precisely official and never approved or adopted by Parliament. Sir John A. MacDonald made sure, however, that it flew over Parliament Hill and above Canadian public buildings. In 1891, the Governor General, Lord Stanley—he of the Stanley Cup in hockey—declared it to be ‘the recognized Flag of the Dominion, both afloat and ashore’.
[…] [T]he Red Ensign was the Canadian flag during the First and Second World Wars: first it flew over those killed at Vimy, the Somme, Passchendaele, Ypres, Flanders, and other battlefields; then it was part of the Italian campaign, the liberation of Holland, Hong Kong, and the Battles of Britain and the North Atlantic. Later, it supported our troops in Korea. It then continued to serve until Canada adopted its own flag forty-five years ago in 1965.
[…] The Red Ensign is a powerful Canadian symbol, which has a long, affectionate, and great history in Canada, having flown over our early settlements, our distant outposts, our government buildings, our schools and post offices, and our cemeteries and war graves, for well over 350 years. This particular version and this particular flag, representing Canada in the year of its Confederation, is one of the rarest and most magnificent of all, with its exceptional condition and its brilliant original colours still forcefully intact. The power of its pure, rich colour, the scale of it, and the pivotal moment it represents in our country § history, is unmatched.”
A new home for the Red Ensign
The auction at the Royal Ontario Museum took place on the evening of 2 June 2010 and attracted many collectors.
The flag was Lot 46 and listed as: “Canadian School, Red Ensign, c. 1868. Printed and stitched wool, linen edge, hemp rope. All seams are folded over and sewn in a straight stitch. 119 by 226.0 cm, 47 by 89 in. Estimate 40,000-60,000.”
The bids moved quickly from the opening offer of $40,000 to $90,000. Then, beyond all expectations, a new Canadian collector emerged to seal the final sale price. He paid $117,500 —a record for a Canadian textile artefact.
There was lot of press coverage following the auction. It transpired that the purchaser was a retired investment banker from Western Canada who came primarily to purchase the Canadian Red Ensign.
I was overjoyed that the selling price for the Ensign reached such a lofty height; this vindicated my conviction that the flag’s value should reflect its importance in Canadian history.
I was very relieved that the flag was to stay in Canadian hands. I was proud to have been the flag’s guardian for over 50 years. I hope that someday it will end up in its true home, either Canada’s Parliament or Canada’s Library and Archives, where it can be taken care of as a relic of more than 150 years deserves.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2020), pp. 22–25. Read the rest of this issue →
