The Red Ensign or "Red Duster" is a flag that originated in the early 17th century as an English ensign flown by the Royal Navy and later specifically by British Merchant Seamen (The British Merchant Navy). The precise date of its first appearance is not known, but surviving receipts indicate that the Navy was paying to have such flags sewn during the 1620s. It is currently used as the civil ensign of the United Kingdom.
Read more about Red Ensign: History, Australia, Bermuda, Canada, India, Isle of Man, Newfoundland, New Zealand, South Africa, The Scout Association, Taunton, Bristol, Massachusetts, United States
Famous quotes containing the words red and/or ensign:
“The complaint ... about modern steel furniture, modern glass houses, modern red bars and modern streamlined trains and cars is that all these objets modernes, while adequate and amusing in themselves, tend to make the people who use them look dated. It is an honest criticism. The human race has done nothing much about changing its own appearance to conform to the form and texture of its appurtenances.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry! which their keepers call
A lightning before death: O, how may I
Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife!
Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquered; beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)