The Newfoundland Tricolour, or the Pink, White and Green, is an unofficial flag of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and is mistakenly believed to have been an official Flag of Newfoundland and Labrador, or more commonly, of the island of Newfoundland specifically.
Its proportions are 1:2 with three pales of equal width coloured green (hoist side), white (centre), and pink (on the fly). The design originated in the late 19th century with the Newfoundland Fishermen's Star of the Sea Association, an aid and benefit organization established in St. John's in 1871 by the Catholic Church. The flag was unofficial but the official banner of the association was a green background with a white star and a pink cross in the centre. The Star of the Sea is Polaris, the North Star, which was very important in navigation. Mary, mother of Jesus, is also known as Our Lady, Star of the Sea. While the colours were taken from the official banner of the association, the flag's design may have been influenced by the then unofficial Irish tricolour and or a local design (red at the hoist, white in the centre and green on the fly tricolour) which was used by the Newfoundland Natives' Society (NNS) from the mid 1800s. The NNS flag had fallen out of use since the demise of the society.Carolyn Lambert, Emblem of our Country, Newfoundland and Labrador Studies, Volume 23, Number 1, 2008.John FitzGerald, "Pink, white and green", The Independent, 9 January 2005.Paul O'Neill, The Oldest City: The Story of St. John's, Newfoundland, 2003, . With the introduction of the unofficial Labrador flag in March 1974 and the official change of the province's name to "Newfoundland and Labrador" in December 2001 the green-white-pink tricolour is generally considered to be the unofficial flag of the Newfoundland region of the province.
Origins
Historical evidence indicates that the "Pink, White and Green" flag first appeared in the late 1880s to early 1890s as the flag of the Roman Catholic fraternal group the Newfoundland Fishermen's Star of the Sea Association, which was formed in St. John's in 1871.Newfoundland Historical Society, A Short History of Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John's, NL, Boulder Publications, 2008. It bears a strong resemblance to the Flag of Ireland, which first appeared in 1848 as an unofficial emblem for Ireland but did not enter wide use until 1916, but with the Protestant representation of the orange panel of King William of Orange removed and replaced by a pink panel; pink or rose being a liturgical colour of the Catholic church and an official colour of the Star of the Sea Association.
Popular mythical origins A popular legend presented in the July 1976 issue of the Roman Catholic archdiocese's newsletter The Monitor is commonly (though erroneously) believed to present the origins of the flag.Paul O'Neill, "Around and About", The Monitor, July 1976, pp. 11–12. The legend tells that the flag was created in 1843 by Bishop Michael Anthony Fleming and is symbolic of a tradition between local Protestants and Catholics. The annual wood hauls of firewood by sealers, waiting for their vessels to leave the port of St. John's, would get embroiled in a competition to supply wood to the local Anglican cathedral, Roman Catholic cathedral, schools and other charity institutions. The Protestant English marked their wood piles with the rose flag of the Newfoundland Natives' Society, while the Catholic Irish used green banners. The threat of violence was such that the Speaker of the House, William Carson, suggested that Bishop Fleming should be enlisted as a peacemaker. Rather than simply preaching sermons, it was decided that Fleming would try to unite the sides. To that end, Bishop Fleming persuaded the two factions to adopt a common flag, tying together the rose and green flags of the two groups with a white handkerchief, which was to symbolize peace.A brief regarding the proposal of the Government of Newfoundland & Labrador for a Distinctive Provincial Flag (St. John's: Newfoundland Historical Society, 1977), p17.Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, . The pink/rose-colour is said to have symbolized the Protestant English since a rose (the Tudor rose) is the national floral emblem of England. This has been questioned as the Tudor Rose is actually red and white, not pink, while the green of the shamrock symbolized the mostly Catholic Irish. The white was taken from the Cross of St. Andrew, the patron saint of fishermen and Scotland.
This is not the original version of the legend, however, but rather appears to be a modification of an older legend intended to incorporate Protestant English representation into a flag originating within the Roman Catholic Irish community. In 1900 historians Devine and O'Mara told that the concept of the flag was originated by Bishop Fleming in the mid-19th century as a symbolic gesture to quiet tensions between newly arriving Irish settlers and the existing Roman Catholic community in the St. John's area. The local Newfoundland 'Bush-borns' and 'Old Country' Irish-borns were embroiled in rivalry to supply the biggest load of wood to the Roman Catholic Cathedral during the big yearly wood haul. There was argument over which group had the larger load and violence between them ensued. Upon hearing of this, Fleming induced them to join their pink and green wood slide markers together with neutral white being placed in between and thus was born the concept which eventually became the pink, white and green flag of the Star of the Sea fraternal association for Catholics. In this version of the story, pink similarly represented Newfoundland-born Catholics, possibly members of a "natives" group, that were supplying wood to Fleming himself, with the Protestant English not included in the proceedings at all. Devine and O'Mara conceded that this story was based on oral tradition with no actual historical evidence to support it.
In 1902, however, the colour pink (rose) was designated to represent the "rose of England" by the first Newfoundland-born Roman Catholic bishop and future Archbishop of St. John's Michael Francis Howley in the poem The Flag of Newfoundland, which he is credited as having written at that time and proposing it as an alternative national anthem to Sir Charles Cavendish Boyle's Ode to Newfoundland – Boyle being Newfoundland's British colonial governor from 1901 to 1904. Howley attempted to overcome the perception of the "Pink, White and Green" as a Catholic flag by incorporating Protestant representation and turning the flag into a symbol representing all Newfoundlanders. This was a somewhat awkward assertion since the "rose of England"is not pink/rose. However, the national floral emblem of England is a rose, the red and white Tudor rose instituted by King Henry VII as the symbol of unified England following what became known as the War of the Roses. Historically, the colour pink/rose has never been used to represent England, its people or any of the Protestant churches of England or Newfoundland. However, the colour pink seen as rose could be said to evoke the image of a rose which is England's floral emblem. Pink/rose is a liturgical colour of the Roman Catholic church. Pink/rose was in use by other Catholic organizations in St. John's at the time. Furthermore, the Star of the Sea Association's original banner, predating the green-white-pink tricolour, consisted of a white star and a pink cross on a green background, as specified in their original rules and by-laws. Incidentally, by specifying the colour green in the poem as representing "St. Patrick's emblem", the shamrock, Howley joined many Irish nationalists in rejecting the red saltire of Saint Patrick's Cross, which they see as a British invention and which forms the diagonal red cross of the Union Jack meant to represent Ireland.Hayes-McCoy, p.38. Nevertheless, Howley was somewhat successful as many but not most Newfoundlanders accepted it as a national symbol of Newfoundland.
Actual historical origins There is no historical evidence to support Bishop Fleming ever creating the pink, white and green flag. The first published record of the now popularly accepted legend was in a Catholic church archdiocese newsletter during the provincial flag debates of the 1970s, and was not presented as fact at that time. The Newfoundland Natives' Society flag is believed by some historians to have consisted of a green spruce tree on a pink background with two clasped hands and the word "philanthropy" eventually added, though there is no hard evidence to support that this flag ever really existed, that it was ever abandoned, or that the pink, white and green tricolour was ever adopted by the society The NNS was not a Catholic or Protestant society but a nationalist group formed specifically to promote the advancement of careers and interests of native-born Newfoundlanders, no matter what their ethnic origin or religious affiliation. Its first president, elected by members of the society in 1840, was a Roman Catholic physician by the name of Dr. Edward Kielly. From its early days, it served as a vehicle to allow Newfoundland-born Roman Catholics who opposed Bishop Fleming's political influence to work alongside Protestant reformers (then affiliated with the "Tory" party) and was openly opposed by Fleming. Available history indicates that the society actually used a tricolour flag of red, white and green, raising the speculation that it was this flag that symbolized peace between the Irish Catholics and English Protestants within the society since red and white was a more fitting representation of the red and white Tudor Rose of England, and the society itself being expressly non-denominational.