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

Baltimore City, Maryland (U.S.)

by Rick Wyatt, 22 May 1997

Description
Baltimore Orioles

See also:

State of Maryland

Description

In 1898 the cruiser Baltimore, at Manila in the Philippines, flew a flag consisting of a blue field charged with Baltimore's Battle Monument in white, encircled by a wreath in green. On a canton was the Calvert shield with the motto of Maryland. (Baltimore Sunday Sun, 14 Feb 1915).

For some time before the present flag was adopted the city used a banner Azure, charged with the Battle Monument Argent (Baltimore News, 7 June 1915).

The flag officially adopted by Mayor Preston and the Municipal Flag Commission was blazoned: Paly of six Or and sable, a bend counterchanged, on an inescutcheon Sable, within an orle of the first, a representation of Baltimore's Battle Monument Argent [The orle was drawn much thinner than usual].

The flag aroused a controversy over whether it was heraldically correct to place a Sable inescutcheon on a Sable field. A letter was written to the College of Arms in London, and Keith W. Murray, Portcullis Pursuivant, replied that the flag was heraldically correct since the field was party Or and Sable; thus the tincture rule was not violated. Mr. Murray added that since the orle had no diminutive, it might be better to change the inescutcheon to Azure (The Baltimore News, 3 Dec 1914; Baltimore Sunday Sun, 16 May 1915).

Two other designs had been submitted to the Municipal Flag Commission, and Pursuivant Murray pronounced them both heraldically correct. Clayton C. Hall proposed the flag should be; Azure, a representation of the Battle Monument Argent, on a canton the Calvert Arms. R. H. Spencer proposed: Paly of six