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British Commercial Flags

Old flag
BBC News

Bentley
Cragganmore Distillery
De Lorean Motor Cars Ltd.
Gamma Global
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC)
Vauxhall

See also:

BBC

The modern flag seen by Jonathan is less interesting, but it is used and it should also be drawn. I wonder, however, whether the background colour is actually black. I *think* I have seen photos which show it as a deep purplish colour, and the image at www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=36890807&size=o doesn't look black to me. There are also regional variants of this flag in other colours, which I don't think need concern us much, as at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/04/uk_east_midlands_summits_and_low_points/html/1.stm. The typeface for the three letters, B,B,C, is Gill Sans, the type designer and sculptor Eric Gill having carved the statue of Prospero and Ariel which is on the front of Broadcasting House.

I have also found a reference to a BBC flag at http://clarkphotos.spaces.live.com/, where a 'green BBC flag' was flying from the launch which was covering the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. I may have seen a photo of this, but I don't think it's important, being the same sort of one-off as the flag reported by Ron Lahav which started off this thread.
André Coutanche, 14 March 2007

I recall seeing a dark blue flag with the whole achievement of the BBC's coat of arms on it at a trade show in the mid 1990s. I will try to see if I can find a photograph.
Colin Dobson, 14 March 2007

I completely agree about that photo, and others I have seen online. However, I saw the flag again, and it definitely appears blacker than the online photos. There is also another variant of the flag with the words "WORLD SERVICE" in white on two lines below the squares and without the red-green-blue strip at the top (which to me seems to focus on TV/internet to the exclusion of radio), as seen in this photo: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=371789784&size=l.
Jonathan Dixon, 14 May 2007

Old flag

A Time article from 23 May 1932 concerning can be found online at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,743750,00.html?iid=chix-sphere. It mention's the opening of the BBC's then new Broadcasting House building "between Regents Park and Oxford Circus" in London, where Sir John Reith hoisted the BBC flag:
"A terrestrial globe on an azure field, representing the ether, with the seven remaining planets in the sky around it. Around the globe is a golden ring representing broadcast transmissions through the ether encircling the earth."

I don't think this symbol is still in use, but I did see a flag flying at Broadcasting House the other weekend. It was black, with the BBC logo (three squares containing the letters B, B and C) in white, and a narrow strip along the top divided red, green and blue.
Jonathan Dixon, 12 March 2007

image by André Coutanche, 24 March 2007

Based on an image by Campbell & Evans' 'Book of Flags'

The BBC as an organisation started in 1922, as the British Broadcasting *Company*; it was then a consortium of manufacturers of radios - 'wireless sets' in the language of the time. In 1927, it became a public corporation established by Royal Charter, and John Reith, who had been the General Manger, became its founding Director-General (and would later become Sir John, finally Lord Reith). The flag described in the 'Time' article is the banner of arms derived from the coat of arms granted to the BBC, apparently in 1927 on its incorporation. This is reported in the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_the_BBC, and at an interesting and, I think, convincing site at www.btinternet.com/~roger.beckwith/bh/odds/crest.htm, though I cannot find direct evidence for the date of the grant of arms. It would be wonderful if the College of Arms could make their records available on-line, though I see they now have on-line versions of their newsletters ( www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/#newsletter ) which include vexillologically relevant material.

The website at www.btinternet.com/~roger.beckwith/bh/odds/crest.htm comments on the changing appearance of the coat of arms over the years, but the author is clearly not very familiar with heraldry, since the changes are purely artistic licence and the blazon is respected. There is one exception to this, however; for some years the motto changed from "Nation shall speak Peace unto Nation" to "Quaecunque". It is alleged both here and at Wikipedia that this happened for unknown reasons in 1934, but I had always believed that it changed when war was declared - or, at least, was seen as inevitable - in 1939. I haven't found any evidence either way (but I don't have time to read all my books!). However, for vexillological purposes, this is secondary, since the motto does not appear on the flag.

The image above is based on a BBC television programme about the history of the Third Programme, the BBC's 'cultural' radio channel which started after World War II. It shows the flag flying on Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London. Versions of the coat of arms can be found at www.blogstudio.com/johncoxon/03_02_03___03_08_03_Mind_Streaming.html, www.tech-notes.tv/Links,%20Publications%20&%20Organizations/links_to_other_places.htm and http://news.webshots.com/photo/1093559488038922344iNYvfA. The colours vary, but I believe that the blue isn't as vivid as some of these and should be B- (51:153:255). A 'clean' line version of the arms can be found at www.flickr.com/photos/69174225@N00/39215481/. Note that on the flag, the seven 'stars' are arranged as a vertical line of three on each side with the seventh at the top.

Boutell's Heraldry (Rev. Ed. 1963) shows the coat of arms on Plate XXIV between pp. 226 and 227: what we call stars are "estoiles" (seven in all, each having six wavy rays). "The gold band represents broadcast transmissions" (p. 226) actually touches the globe, surrounding it like an annulet. Other coat of arms elements I leave out as they do not appear on the flag. The arms were granted in 1927.
Jan Mertens, 22 March 2007

BBC News

The BBC has been running a series all this week on the implications of the imminent enlargement of the European Union. They have chartered a barge and are traveling down the Danube from Vienna through to Budapest. Although the barge they chartered, the Joseph, flies an Austrian flag at her stern, from a mast behind her wheelhouse she also flies a flag which I have never seen before - the flag of BBC News. This is a standard rectangle, with black the background color. In the
center are two orange ellipses (this is really not very precise - they resemble nothing more than Salvador Dali's melting clocks). These ellipses are apparently the symbols of BBC News now, as they appear at the beginning of all news broadcasts on at least four regular newscasts: the hourly and half-hourly news updates on BBC News 24, the 24-hour news channel, the Morning News, from 6 to 8 a.m., the Six o'Clock News, and the main evening newscast at 10 p.m. In the space between these ellipses there are three small five-pointed gold stars in an irregular formation, with a larger five-pointed gold star below. To the right of the artwork are the words in white italics 'BBC News', in two lines.

The Beeb should be congratulated for actually devising a flag of genuine vexillological content instead of using the traditional logo on a bed-sheet of so many news organizations. Note that this flag differs from that of the BBC as an organization.
Ron Lahav, 28 April 2004

Bentley

While riding past Bentley Newcastle, the local Bentley dealership in Newcastle upon Tyne, earlier today, I noted the following flag flying alongside the UJ in front of the showroom. It is a black rectangular flag in standard dimensions, containing the Bentley logo in its center. The logo is a horizontal ellipse with a white field and a black block letter B in what appears to be an Art Deco font set in its center. The ellipse is flanked by a set of white wings, each flank consisting of three feathers of differing lengths in descending order. The word 'Bentley', the name of the marque, is written in standard white block lettering, with a space between each letter.
Ron Lahav, 12 July 2008

Cragganmore Distillery

located by Elias Granqvist, 23 June 2007

Source: http://travel.webshots.com/photo/1072705885015688052nQdFZL

De Lorean Motor Cars Ltd.

by Dean Thomas

History

In 1980, The De Lorean Motor Company was established in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The company went into receivership in 1983, after producing a little over 8700 of the unique gull-winged, stainless steel sports cars.

The flag that flew over the De Lorean factory is approximately 4 ft x 10 ft. This photograph, which was offered on the eBay website, is the original flag. The colors are "silver-grey" and black. Beneath the "DMC" logo is "De Lorean Motor Cars Ltd" in black lettering (ZapfHumst DM font).
Dean Thomas, 23 April 2004

Gamma Global

image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 27 June 2007

At Three flags at the Portimão Marina (Portugal): Gamma Global (GB company), Tivoli Hotels (PT) and host. This was one of the many flag sightings during The Great Vex Safari 2006 Jorge Candeias and I did in southwest Portugal (which included a couple hours with Ron Lahav, too). The British company Gamma Global is described as a "world leader in the global market for the independent distribution of tier one IT products" (http://www.gammaglobal.com/).

The flag, as seen hoisted at the Portimão Marina in early 2006 (the venue for a company meeting, perhaps?), is a 2:3 white cloth with the company logo/lettering on it. The logo is a orange tiled rectangle with round angles and a likewise white "whole" on it and light blue letters "Gamma" in bold and "global" in a lighter weighter of a sans-serif, round tip typeface.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 27 June 2007

Vauxhall

image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 11 July 2008

The British automobile marque Vauxhall has also a flag(oid) in its logo ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_Motors ). It a plain flag with an upper case "V", held by the gryphon taken from the arms of Faulke de Breaute. Although the logo was redesigned nine times since the 1920s, the aspect has remained constant.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_Motors#Origins_of_the_name_and_the_logo
I show this flagoid in non-descript colors.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 11 July 2008