COMMEMORATIVE FLAG.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 298, 16 December 1931, Page 7

COMMEMORATIVE FLAG.

Unfurling Ceremony at Christ’s College.

The anniversary of the arrival of the pilgrims at Lyttelton was celebrated at Christ’s College this morning by the unfurling of a house flag presented to the Pilgrims* Association by the manager of the Orient Steam Ship Company. The Orient Company had its beginnings in the Thomson line, owners of the Charlotte Jane, one of four pioneer vessels that arrived at Lyttelton eighty-one years ago. The flag was broken out by Mr A. Barker, the sole survivor of the Charlotte Jane’s passengers. Mr Barker is an old boy of the college. He had a bodyguard of pioneers in Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson, the Rev F. G. Brittan, Messrs George Harper, John Anderson and J. Thompson.

The school was drawn up on the quadrangle and stood at attention as the flag (the cross of St Andrew) was broken out. The National Anthem was played as a salute by the college band. Mr E. R. Webb, of the Pilgrim’s Association, said that the unfurling of the flag marked the respect held by the college for the band of adventurers who set out eighty-one years ago and founded the province of Canterbury. The pioneers considered the establishment of Christ’s College to be their greatest work and many of them were old boys and the fathers of old boys of the school.

The ceremony was concluded by the playing of “ Auld Lang Syne.”