County flags have become an important part of our regional and national identity.
Most historic English counties have a recognised county flag, but Staffordshire did not.
The Flag Institute maintains the UK Flag Registry as a definitive record of county and community flags, and works with county organisations to come up with suitable designs.
The historic county of Staffordshire includes Stoke-on-Trent, Wolverhampton and several other parishes that fall outside the boundaries of the modern Staffordshire County Council (SCC).
The Flag Institute received two applications for a Staffordshire county flag.
One came from Staffordshire County Council, and the other from the Staffordshire Heritage Group (SHG), an umbrella organisation for many local cultural groups.
Both applications met the Flag Institute’s published criteria, and both designs met its design guidelines, so the Flag Institute decided that a public vote was the only fair way to decide between them.
The vote has now closed and the results are in.
Voting procedure
Voting was open only to those who live or work in the historic county of Staffordshire, identified by postcode.
The Flag Institute has checked these against a list of all valid postcodes in the historic county area.
Total ballots submitted: 825
Total ballots validated against the list of postcodes: 784
Total validated ballots choosing a design: 777 (i.e. 7 ballots made no choice)
Votes for each design:
Staffordshire County Council: 211 (27.16% of validated votes)
Staffordshire Heritage Group: 566 (72.84% of validated votes)
The Staffordshire Heritage Group design is the winner and it will enter the UK Flag Registry as the Staffordshire County Flag.
The Staffordshire County Council design will remain the Council’s banner of arms.
The winning design is shown below:
The County Flag of Staffordshire
The gold background and red chevron come from the de Stafford coat-of-arms.
It has been used in connection with the county since at least the 17th century.
The knot is an ancient symbol of Staffordshire, used by many organisations including the Staffordshire Regiment and Staffordshire Cricket.
I for one think it’s great that Staffordshire is finally getting the recognition it deserves, I don’t think people realise the impact that the invention of the pretzel had on the world.
I opine that it would be great if any ‘disvexular’ [a word meaning ‘without flag’] Counties, Historic Counties, Cities towns and villages, were encouraged, or at least made aware of their non-flagged state, as it must be a terrible shame to not have a flag to proudly billow at the top of a flagstaff. I advise a campaign for a ‘Non-Flagged Entities Awareness Day’ until the deplorable state is remedied, and this would result in a much greater awareness of flags. the design of the Staffordshire flag is to be warmly commended on its timeless and simple quality, which honours the great heraldic tradition
The red chevron on gold field is also, when reversed, the basis of the arms of the City of Newport, as the castle and town were owned by the Staffords up to (and possibly beyond) 1485.