This paper is concerned with the unsteady hydromagnetic boundary-layer flow past a semi-infinite flat plate when the oncoming free stream is perturbed by an arbitrary function of time and the applied magnetic field is parallel to the plate far away from it. Following Lighthill, the two-dimensional boundary-layer equations are separated into those representing steady and unsteady parts of the flow and they have been solved in sequence. For the unsteady part of the motion two types of solutions are obtained, one for large times and the other for small times. Also the quasi-steady solution is obtained in terms of the steady solution. The skin friction and the tangential magnetic field at the plate are calculated.