HISTORY OF THE "BLUE PETER."

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 169, 17 July 1916, Page 10

HISTORY OF THE "BLUE PETER."

Who is there in the Royal Navy or the merchant service that has seen the' "Blue Peter" flying on a homewardbound vessel of any kind without their thougtits flying across the seae to ttie dear homeland? Yet how many know the origin of the term "Blue Peter," which from time immemorial has teen the name given to the flag- which is hoisted 'by vessels at the foretopgallant masthead to signify approaching departure. "Notes and Queries" points out that the "Oxford Dictionary" gives the sixth signification of "Peter" as portmanteau, trunk, bundle, or parcel. This use originated in the vocabulary of thieves during the seventeenth century; the earliest instance of the word's occurrence quoted being from Richard Head's "English Rogue" (1663); it is also used b3' Smollett. The "Oxford Dictionary" also citc3 an example of "Blue Peter" from the "Naval Chronicle" (1803): "She has had Blue Peter's Hag flying at the fore as a signal for, sailing"; and,

under "Blue," one from Byron's "Don Juan" (1825): "It is time that I should hoist my Blue Peter, And sail for a new theme." Taking, then, this early significance of "peter" as trunk or package, the meaning of the word seems likely to have arisen in the eighteenth century, or even earlier. The captain or the shipping agent of a vessel wishing, as the time of departure from port approached, to get ail the cargo on board, rormed a rough-and-ready \ievicc by running up a flag bearing n white, oblong figure, to indicate a trunk, case, or cargo in general, drawn upon a blue ground, which represented the ocean. This was to show all parties interested in the vessel that the remaining cargo and personal effecta must be shipped immediately, the vessel being ready for sea. When tlie signification of the original "peter -, as a trunk or case was lost sight, of. through the flag receiving that name, the signal, naturally enough, would be called a "Blue Peter," in spite of the trunk being painted white, since the predominating colour, which denoted the sen, was blue, and the colour of a flag is alwaj-s spoken of as that of its groundwork, and not that of the devices on it. It is also interesting to note that the pilot's flag, flown by a veseel which requires a pilot to take her into ■port, and was probably invented about the game date as the "Blue Peter," is an exact converse of that signal, viz., a blue oblong block on a white ground.