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Maritime Houseflags B (Australia)

Australia

Botany Bay Shipping Co. (Australia)
Broken Hill Proprietary Co.
Brown Bros. / J. & A. Brown and Abermain Seaham Colliery Ltd
Burns, Philp & Company

See also:

Botany Bay Shipping Co. (Australia)

image by Jarig Bakker, 18 Dec 2005

Botany Bay Shipping Co. (Australia), Ltd., Sydney - brightblue burgee, white "BB".
Source: Brown's Flags and Funnels of Shipping Companies of the World [lgr95].
Jarig Bakker, 18 December 2005

Broken Hill Proprietary Co.

Pre 1985 flag

image by Jarig Bakker, 7 Aug 2004

From the link provided by Barbara Tomlinson of The National Maritime Museum http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/:

The house flag of The Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd, Melbourne. A rectangular flag divided diagonally into red and blue by a white stripe from top right to bottom left. Inscribed on the stripe is 'B. H. P.' The flag is made of a wool and synthetic fibre bunting. It has a cotton hoist and is machine sewn. A rope and toggle is attached.

The Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd was a major conglomerate based in Melbourne whose principal interest was mining. It entered shipowning in 1927. The company has now merged with Billiton Ltd and is known as BHP Billiton Ltd.

Jarig Bakker, 7 August 2004

Pre 1985 jack

image by Jonathan Dixon, 24 Oct 2005

The ships used to also fly a stem jack in port being blue with a red oval bearing a white diagonal band charged with the black letters "BHP".
Neale Rosanoski, 4 August 2005

1985 flag

image by Jarig Bakker, 5 Oct 2005

BHP subsequently used a logo on a white field beginning in 1985 with the logo being based on the letters "b", "h" and "p" and also having a loose resemblance to the shape of Australia being coloured charcoal blue and turquoise blue with the charcoal being standard but the divisions of the company varying the other colour.
Neale Rosanoski, 4 August 2005

1994 flag

image by Jonathan Dixon, 24 Oct 2004

In 1994 the logos of the group were standardized to one of dark charcoal. In 2001 BHP Billiton announced a new logo which presumably will have resulted in a new flag.
Neale Rosanoski, 4 August 2005

Brown Bros. / J. & A. Brown and Abermain Seaham Colliery Ltd

One of many flags presented by the State Library of Tasmania is that of a firm named Brown Bros. (Brothers):
Red field, blue diamond touching the flag’s edges and bearing a white initial &147;B” without serifs.

It is stated that this company owned the ship Stephen Brown although Coal and Allied Shipping is also named in this capacity. A pennant of this vessel may be seen at this State Library page:

Caption: “Navy blue pendant flag with 'Stephen Brown' in white lettering. A paying off pendant was made when a ship finished its service, and the length of the flag is 1ft for each year of service. The 'Stephen Brown' was a 60 miler that carried coal from Newcastle to Sydney before being sold to the AMC (Australian Maritime College).”

Surely this is a simple onomast also known as name pennant, not a paying-off pennant as used by a navy?

“Brown Bros.” is connected to “J. & A. Brown and Abermain Seaham Colliery Ltd” of Sydney – see this Aberdeen Built Ships page about what must have been the ship in question.

See also Coal & Allied. This firm was founded after the merger of Brown & Abermain Seaham with Caledonian Collieries in 1960. In fact Abermain and Seaham had merged in 1922 joined by J. and A. Brown in 1931; the largest shareholder was Adelaide Steamship.

Additional info: CareerOne page on Coal and Allied [no longer accessible] and entry for photo of Abermain No.2 Colliery at Demetrius repository, ANU. The above seems to indicate pre-1960 use of the house flag, the name pennant may have been in use after that.
Jan Mertens, 17 November 2009

Burns, Philp & Company

image by Jarig Bakker, 17 Jan 2005

Burns, Philp & Company, Limited, Sydney: A vertical slanting triband Red White Blue; on the white band a green device (a thistle?).
Source: Brown's Flags and Funnels of British and Foreign Steamship Companies [wed26].
Jarig Bakker, 17 Jan 2005

The design is a thistle. The Brown series from 1943 and the post WW2 editions of Stewart all show the bands as vertical but Australian nautical sources do not note any change so they seem to have got it wrong.
Neale Rosanoski, 4 August 2005