North East Museums has confirmed it will look to purchase a rare union jack flag from a private seller thanks to a donation from a charitable foundation.
An export bar was placed on the flag – one of only three known to have survived the Battle of Trafalgar – at the end of last year in a last-ditch attempt to prevent it being sold abroad.
The deadline for expressions of interest was 16 March, and the flag’s owners now have 15 business days to consider any offers to purchase the flag at the recommended price of £450,000 (plus VAT of £90,000).
The flag flew from the HMS Royal Sovereign, the flagship of Newcastle-born Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, which led Lord Nelson’s charge at the Battle of Trafalgar on 17 September 1748. It still features burn marks and splinters inflicted during the subsequent battle with Napoleon’s French and Spanish fleets.
If the expression of interest is successful, North East Museums’ acquisition of the flag will be funded by a donation secured from a charitable foundation and will go on display at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle.
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“We hope to secure this rare and historically significant flag to ensure it remains in the UK and to display it in Newcastle upon Tyne, as it is not only an important artefact in British history but it has notable connections with north east England,” said Keith Merrin, director of North East Museums.
Collingwood recruited many of his sailors from the local maritime community. This led to the Royal Sovereign’s crew gaining the nickname ‘Tars of the Tyne’. The flag is believed to have been made and maintained on board the ship by these sailors.
A temporary bar preventing the flag’s sale overseas was issued by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, the independent body serviced by Arts Council England that advises the culture secretary on whether a cultural object intended for export is of national importance under specified criteria.
The bar was granted on the basis that the flag met the first and third Waverley criteria for its outstanding connection with history and national life, and its outstanding significance to the study of historical commemorative practices, innovative naval tactics, and processes of flag-making.
The flag was last sold in 2004 at Christies for £298. At the time of the sale, it was described as: “A rare early 19th-century naval union flag, hand stitched in callico with small lead weight stitched in lower corner (patched, upper blue quadrant frayed at edge, some small holes, original tack loosely recovered) – 108 x 60in (274.5 x 152.5cm).”
Its first known owner was Charles Aubrey Antram (1785-1831), the master’s mate in Royal Sovereign at the Battle of Trafalgar, and from him it passed on death to his sister, Rachel Nelson Lloyd (1803-1884), then her great-nephew Owen John Dunn (1846-1925), and his son, Captain William Henry Dunn (1889-1986).
It then passed to William Ames (1919-2003) and upon his death it was sold at auction to the current owner.
