![[Royal Navy Supply & Transport Service]](../images/g/gb^rnsts.gif)
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by Joe McMillan
Last modified: 2019-06-04 by rob raeside
Keywords: royal navy | supply & transport service | victualling service | beef flag |
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by Joe McMillan
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Image based on a Ministry of Defence poster called Colours of the Fleet.
The complete caption to the flag is, "The civilian manned RNSTS is responsible
for the great majority of stores used throughout the Fleet. This flag was
granted by the Queen in 1984 and is flown at Naval Stores Depots."
David Prothero, 17 November 2001
A specimen at the
National Maritime Museum shows this
flag in 1:2 dimensions.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 13 May 2019
![[Victualling Service]](../images/g/gb~vicre.gif)
image by Miles Li and Joe McMillan, 25 December 2007
The 'Flags and Ensigns' issue of Royal Mail Stamps (October 2001) included
illustrations from 'The Maritime Flags of All Nations' (Richard H Laurie, 53
Fleet Street, London, 4 January 1842.) One was the flag of the Victualling
Service, a red ensign defaced with the same crossed-anchors badge as used by
RNSTS. The Victualling Service (later the Victualling and Transport Service) is
presumably the predecessor of RNSTS. Samuel Pepys became its Surveyor-General in
1665.
Stephen Fletcher, 12 August 2004
"Flags of the World: Their
History, Blazonry and Associations" illustrated a
Blue Ensign with the same badge and
usage. Judging from historic precedents, the Blue Ensign would have been the
"newer" of the two ensigns. In any case, the Victualling Board had ceased to exist way back in 1832!
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victualling_Commissioners)
Miles Li, 25 December 2007
The Victualling Board was abolished 1 June 1832 (2 Will.IV.,cap.40) so it is
unlikely that the foul anchors in saltire ever appeared on a Blue Ensign. In
1872 when information for Hounsell's Flag Book was being collected, the drawing
of a Red Ensign with crossed foul anchors was sent to the Portsmouth Yard,
Master Shipwright and Engineer, with a letter asking if this was the "victualling
transport flag". He replied that for vessels belonging to the victualling
establishment the flag was a Blue Ensign with a gold horizontal anchor, and that
the flag in the drawing was not known to him.
[National Archives (PRO) ADM 116/322]
David Prothero, 26 December 2007
The following is a quote from the memoirs of Rear-Admiral Hugh Rodman[1],
USN. Admiral Rodman commanded a squadron of American battleships that was
attached to the British Grand Fleet in 1918. British Admiral David Beatty was
the Fleet commander, and he and Rodman became good friends:
"There was an
occasion when, standing on the quarterdeck of the "Queen Elizabeth," Admiral
Beatty's flagship, in company with several other admirals, I noticed the
beef-boat going past. She was flying the beef flag. Each type of vessel had a
distinctive flag, and that of the beef boat was a white bull on a blue field.
"Pointing to the flag, I said facetiously, "This is the first time I have
ever seen the royal standard of Great Britain flying officially - old white John
Bull himself, on a azure field" They all caught my meaning and thoroughly
appreciated it. But to my surprise I saw later, in the London illustrated
papers, photographs of the beef flag, with my picture vignetted in the corner,
with this legend: "A queer mistake of the American admiral serving in the Grand
Fleet - he mistook the Beef Flag for the Royal Standard." Judging by the number
of allusions to the incident from friends in the fleet, they all seemed to be
very much amused."
Admiral Rodman also states that the (real) Royal
Standard was hoisted at the main masthead of his flagship, the USS New York,
when the King visited the ship after the Armistice. He told the King that, "this
is a historic day and a proud one for us, for this is the first time in history
that the royal standard of Great Britain has ever flown officially over an
American man-of-war."
[1] Rodman, Rear Admiral Hugh, "Yarns of a Kentucky Admiral," Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1928, p.278.
Peter Ansoff, 17 April 2008
See note about the Bullock Pendant
of the French Royal Navy.
Christopher Southworth, 18 April 2008
The Beef flag was probably a 'one-off'.
1. Although Rodman wrote that,
"each type of vessel had a distinctive flag, and that of the beef boat was a
white bull on a blue field", he may have been referring to the variety of
different British ensigns rather than specific store ship flags.
2. It is
unlikely that a store ship would have carried only one type of food at a time. I
imagine that even vessels flying the Beef flag also had other provisions on
board.
3. When Naval Ordnance was transferred from Army Ordnance in 1891 it
was proposed that Naval Ordnance vessels should have a special ensign. D.A.S.
(Director Armament Supply ?) wrote a minute in support of the proposed ensign.
"Explosives and heavy ordnance require special preparations on the part of the
ship receiving them. It is an advantage to know the nature of the stores being
carried by a store ship. Victualling Yard vessels carrying beef, fly a flag with
a white bullock on a blue ground, and although this is not in flag books it
appears to be generally recognised."
[National Archives (PRO) ADM 116/353]
I suggest that if there had been other victualling yard flags he would have
made a general reference to them all, rather than restricting his argument to
just one example.
David Prothero 18 April 2008
