A rare and large Union Jack Naval flag and pennant circa 1810 image 1

A rare and large Union Jack Naval flag and pennant circa 1810 image 2

A rare and large Union Jack Naval flag and pennant circa 1810 image 3

Lot 50

A rare and large Union Jack Naval flag and pennant
circa 1810

Amended

Napoleon Bonaparte: The British Sale

27 October 2021, 14:00 BST

London, New Bond Street

Sold for £10,200 inc. premium

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A rare and large Union Jack Naval flag and pennant

circa 1810
Made from bunting (loosely woven coarse wool), together with an early 19th Century navy blue frock coat with non-regulation buttons, the flag 244cm by 503cm, the pennant 190.5cm. long (3)

Footnotes

Provenance:
Captain Hyde John Clarke, R.N. (1777-1857) and thence by descent through the Clarke family

Born in Jamaica in 1777, Hyde John Clark was a naval officer who saw active service against the French during the Napoleonic Wars. He entered the Royal Navy on 29 June 1791 at the age of 14 as Captain's servant on the 74-gun ship, HMS Bedford. Promoted to Midshipman in 1793, he served in the West Indies and later, after 1797, in the coastal waters off France and the North Sea where as First-Lieutenant in 1806 he was involved in the capture of two French privateers, La Henrietta and La Bellone. Following a posting to Jamaica and the East Indies, Clarke was invalided in 1807. He subsequently joined HMS Temeraire on 23 August 1810 where he was promoted to Commander in October of that year, on Trafalgar Day, serving in the Mediterranean. After resigning his Commission shortly after 1810, he retired to his family estate in Shropshire becoming the principal luminary in the township of Hyde. Following promotion to Captain in 1840, Clarke died in Shropshire in 1857 (O'Byrne's Naval Biography, 1849).

By family repute this flag and pennant were thought to have been flown at the Battle of Trafalgar but as Clarke was serving in the West Indies in 1805 it is more likely that they are from the Temeraire. As he appears to have left the Navy shortly after 1810 it is more plausible that he kept this flag and pennant as souvenirs.

Saleroom notices

We are grateful to Anne-Marie Benson for her assistance with cataloguing this Lot.

Additional information

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