Last modified: 2005-04-16 by dov gutterman
Keywords: guyana | demerara | essequibo | berbice | ship | british guyana |
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Originally "Dutch Guiana" consisted of four colonies
(from west to east): Essequibo, Demerara, Berbice, and Suriname.
The three first became British in 1814 and some years later they
were united into one colony: British Guiana. They were occupied
already earlier by the British (to keep it from the French,
approved by the Prince of Orange in exile), like the Suriname,
the Antilles and East Indies, who became Dutch again, and Ceylon
and the Cape, who remained British.
Mark Sensen, 6 May 1998
A coastal scene with one or more ships was often part of the
seal of a British colony in the latter part of the 19th century,
and this was used as the badge of the colony if there was no
obvious local emblem. Although the British Guiana badge is unique
in having just one ship and no coastline, it is unlikely that the
drawing was meant to represent any particular ship.
The ship in the original circular badge of 1875 is different from
the ship in the oval badge enclosed in a yellow garter of 1906,
which is different again from the badge that was taken from the
arms granted in 1954. The 1906 badge had been criticised for
having a number of nautical anomalies, and in 1953 the Colonial
Office asked the Admiralty for help in ensuring that the arms
were correct from a seaman's point of view. If the badge had been
meant to represent a particular ship I'm sure it would have b