^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Cornwall (United Kingdom)

by Edward Mooney

Cross of St Piran
Arms of Cornwall
A Cornish ensign?
Cornwall Rugby Football Union flag

See also:

Cross of Saint Piran

Cornwall has a white cross on black. I have seen this referred to as "the flag of St. Piran" or "St. Petroc".

Roy Stilling, 21 November 1995

The black flag with the white cross is the banner of Saint Piran, and is now recognized as the 'national flag' of Cornwall.

Saint Piran is the patron saint of tin-miners. Tin was formerly the most important element in the economy of Cornwall. Is is said that Saint Piran derived his colours from his discovery of tin, a white metal in the black ashes of his fire. Another story tells that the colours stand for the ore and the metal, although Cornwall was of course famous for tin long before the beginning of the Christian era.

An article in Encyclopædia Britannica tells that the flag was carried by the Cornish contigent at the Battle of Agincourt (1415). In a history of 1837 Saint Piran's flag was described as the "standard of Cornwall", and another of 1880 which said that: "The white cross of St. Piran was the ancient banner of the Cornish people."

Source: Heraldry Society Flag Section Newsletter, Autumn 1969.

Jos Poels, 17