Knit your own Union Jack? Why not? Buckinghamshire-based Katie Ayers set herself this challenge and turned to us for vital information. Our Union Flag Specification gave her the correct proportions to plot the number of stitches. Then she started with a number of smaller examples… and just kept going. Here a proud Katie displays the […]
Tag Archives | Union Jack

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 1926–2022
The Flag Institute mourns the passing of HM Queen Elizabeth II at Balmoral Castle on 8 September 2022. Her long reign has been inspirational and we will miss her steadfast hand at the helm of all her realms. Truly the age of HM Queen Elizabeth II has passed and the world is poorer for it. […]
Wales: no change to Union Flag
Interviewed this morning by BBC Wales, Welshman and Flag Institute Chief Executive Charles Ashburner suggested that moves to change the flag of the United Kingdom to include Wales are ‘unlikely to be successful for the foreseeable future’. Such a change might have been hard to resist had Scotland voted for independence. However, the national mood […]

Statement: Flag Institute President
Statement by the Malcolm Farrow, President of the Flag Institute “I would like to endorse most strongly the words of Andrew Rosindell MP – Chairman of the all party Flags and Heraldry Committee. It has been a privilege to work with the Committee for the last six years, during which we have together raised the […]
Scotland votes NO but UK cannot stand still
Citizens of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland woke up this morning in a UK unchanged and never to be the same again. The Westminster government (and many in what so nearly became ‘the rest of the UK’) will breathe a collective sigh of relief. Yet politicians of all shades will be aware that their […]

Will Australia’s flag change if Union is redrawn?
Will Australia’s flag change if the Union Flag is redrawn? The answer is a resounding no, says John Vaughan. A government-approved public competition chose the Australian National Flag in 1901. It is registered under law as the chief national symbol of Australia. The Commonwealth Parliament approved and passed into law the Flags Act 1953. After […]

UK Flag design: comments
With Scotland’s independence vote fast approaching, the Flag Institute is busy answering press enquiries from around the world. As the UK’s national vexillological association, our role is to inform public debate about flags. So we do our best to reply to every one. We conducted one such interview for the Mail on Sunday. Read the […]

Talks at 10 Downing Street
The Flag Institute today held high-level ministerial talks at 10 Downing Street, relating to the future of the Union flag. Andrew Rosindell MP and Lord West of Spithead (UK Parliamentary Flags and Heraldry Committee) organised the talks. John Hayes MP hosted the event in the library of 10 Downing Street. Present were the Committee’s flag […]
Chief Vexillologist on Voice of Russia panel
In a very interesting Voice of Russia broadcast on 11 March 2014, Flag Institute Chief Vexillologist Graham Bartram joined host Brendan Cole on a discussion panel. The panel also included: Liam Clarke, political editor, Belfast Telegraph David Vines White, Somerset Herald, College of Arms, London Professor Paul Ward, Head of Department of History, English Languages […]

Union Flag or Union Jack? The answer
Controversy persists about the UK’s national flag. Should it we call it the Union Flag or the Union Jack? The general public uses Union Jack almost universally. However, some believe that Union Flag is correct term and that Union Jack refers only to the flag when flown from the jack-staff in the bows of a […]


