Flag of the Kingdom of Benin

The flag was allegedly brought back to Britain by Admiral F.W Kennedy, who participated in the 1897 Punitive Expedition in Benin, as a war souvenir captured by the British soldiers who first engaged the Benin soldiers at the Battle of Ologbo.

The Itsekiri flag of Nana clearly shows the British colonial emblem on its top left corner and there was no other independent army in that region that Admiral W.F Kenedy fought against except the Benin Army. It is possible that the "Flag of Benin Empire" is the war flag or unit standard of the Benin Army that the British Army who engaged them at Ologbo brought back to Britain as a war memento or souvenir.

The Greenwich Museum, to which the flag currently belongs, describes this flag as follows:[2]

West African flag probably Itsekri. A red wool bunting flag with a linen hoist, machine sewn with a rope halyard attached. The design is applied in white fabric with painted details, representing a naked man decapitating another with a sword. The flag was said to have been brought back by Admiral F. W. Kennedy from the 1897 Benin expedition. 'Kennedy' is inscribed on a paper label attached to the rope. The Itsekri people acted as middlemen between the Edo people of Benin in the interior and the Europeans on the coast – the Edo would not cross or travel on waterways.

The Benin expedition was launched in reprisal against an attack on a British mission in the service of Niger Coast Protectorate by forces of the Oba of Benin. It was a combined naval and military operation under the command of Rear-Admiral Harry Holdsworth Rawson C.B. with local troops and carriers. The towns of Guato and Sapobar were attacked by detached forces while the main part of the expedition marched on Benin. The town was captured and accidentally burnt. Oba Overami was exiled to Calabar where he died in 1914. The famous Benin bronzes were removed as reparations by the British.'

It is therefore confirmed that the flag was a real African flag that was brought back by the British from their 1897 final expedition against the Empire of Benin (which was then finally overcome and annexed by the British Empire).

The fact – stated by the Royal Museum – that the flag was brought back by Admiral F.W. Kennedy from the 1897 expedition against the Empire of Benin would indicate it clearly came from the Benin Empire.

Several sources on the Internet give it as a fact that the flag was indeed the official flag of the Benin Empire.[3] The first of such assertions seems to trace back to now defunct website GreatBenin.org.

The Maritime Royal Museum (which holds the original flag), on the other hand, propones that the flag is "probably of Itsekri (sic) origin" (the Itsekri were tributary and allies of the Benin Empire),[4] basing such assumption on the supposed similarities between the disputed flag and three other flags brought to Britain after campaigns against then-Itsekiri Chief Nana Olomu, taken place three years earlier than the campaign against the Emperor of Benin from which the red flag was brought. Pictures of the red, disputed flag, as well as of the three definitely Itsekiri flags, can be seen here.

In more recent times the flag has attracted attention for its design being unusual for a flag and gained some popularity on the internet for its highly distinctive and unique graphic design.[5][6][7]

• Royal Museums Greenwich