In pictures: More Union Jacks in Malta’s history
Any excuse proved good enough to include the British flag, be it by the colonial authorities or by the native devotees of empire
This series of pictorials has already featured the presence of the Union Jack in the iconography of Malta.
Any excuse proved good enough to include it, be it by the colonial authorities or by the native devotees of empire.
To see it flying over official buildings or fronting military parades was expected and normal. Today, I will document the British colours also serving other less obvious purposes.
Union Jack float during the coronation festivities of King George VIRed, white and blue flowers formed the three-cross patterns of floats celebrating royal events like jubilees and coronations.
Boy scouts contorted themselves to form lame resemblances of the British colours.
Union Jacks featured repeatedly in boy scouts’ activities.
French sailors under the Union Jack in World War I
Maltese boy scouts of the 1930s forming a Union Jack.
Pre-war, I have never seen Union Jack patterns used on shorts, boxers or ladies’ underwear.
In many countries, burning or otherwise defiling the national flag constitutes a serious criminal offence.
Postcard of the Palace Armoury showing Maltese regimental trophies, c 1920
An Italian postcard of Malta issued in World War I.
Turkey has probably the strongest deterrent: a maximum of 18 years imprisonment, with Malaysia a close runner up: 15.
Some, including the UK, do not criminalise it.
Denmark came up with a bizarre combination – legal to offend the national flag but criminal to debase foreign ones. In Malta, we take outraging the nation’s colours less solemnly – a maximum fine €2,329.
Dom Mintoff addressing a GWU conference during the 1956 Integration with Britain campaign.During the incandescent 1956 Integration-with-Britain political campaign, the Union Jack took over as a dominant symbol in Maltese politics, worshipped by a large left-wing section of the population, deplored by those who aspired to independence.
A postcard of a regiment saluting the Union Jack in Malta in 1909.
Postcard of visit to Malta by King Edward VII in 1907
The Union Jack dipped to the ground to salute the German Kaiser Wilhelm II in one of his three visits to Malta.
Foreign postcard publishers have occasionally tried to combine the Union Jack with the Malta colours.
Most of the time they got it wrong.
They came out with seemingly patriotic, but flawed, solutions.
An embroidered postcard used in Malta in World War IAll images from the author’s collections
Malta postcard of Queen Mary in World War I