The St John’s College Flag and Coat-of-Arms is held in the Kinder Library
With the current debate over the New Zealand flag (edit: 2015), we thought we would shine some light on the St John’s Flag and Coat-of-Arms that we hold in our archives here at the John Kinder Theological Library.
The St John’s Flag and Coat-of-Arms dates back to the 1930s and evidence suggests it was designed by a college student, Francis Graham Harvie or at least based on his designs for the College coat-of-arms and colours (“blue, gold and silver”). Archival material held in the collections relate to F. G. Harvie’s design of the coat-of-arms for the college and a letter to Archdeacon Simkin, then Secretary to the St John’s College Trust Board, with his suggestions.
However, the coat-of-arms and in particular the symbol of St John’s eagle wasn’t very well-liked by some at the College, notoriously being referred to as a “plucked chicken” in student literature. In the Diocese of Auckland Yearbook for 1950, College Warden R. E. Sutton elaborates that it has been described as the “frightened mutton-bird” or “dying hawk” and this version of the coat-of-arms “had its origin in the fertile imagination of a former warden.” The colouring on the poor bird does bring to mind a cooked chicken!
This flag has been raised periodically, having been last flown on Tuesday 11th April 1978 where someone has added the following implicit instructions for this unfortunate flag; “never to be flown.”
