Four Forgotten Norwegian Ensigns

Standard narratives of Norwegian flag history usually discuss only two specially marked ensigns: the customs and postal ensigns, both based on the swallow-tailed and tongued state ensign of Norway. These were the two ensigns permitted under the 1898 Flag Act that removed the Swedish-Norwegian union mark from civic and state flags and ensigns of Norway. Yet in the last years of the union between Norway and Sweden several more specially marked ensigns existed. At the Yokohama ICV in 2009 I documented the ensign of the Lighthouse Service. In this paper attention is devoted to four more ensigns: those of the State Port Authority, the Port of Kristiania, the Christiania Harbour Police, and the Fisheries Inspection Service. A secondary written description is available for the two port ensigns, though no legal basis has been found for them. The legal basis is available for the Christiania Harbour Police and the Fisheries Inspection Service ensigns; the latter is also illustrated in international flag books of the late 1800s. All four ensigns would have been made defunct by the 1898 Flag Act, though sources indicate the continued use of the Christiania Harbour Police ensign and photographic evidence shows the Fisheries Inspection Service ensign flying as late as 1936.

[IVI.CID] 70d7799b-57c7-4e99-9d5e-f5423e9426a3