Cheshire Heraldry Society AGM

Time has been a little tight this week so I haven't had the time to jot down the happenings at the AGM last Saturday but in brief here goes:

The Committee was re-elected en-block as follows:

Officers:

Chair  Mr. Harold Storey

Hon. Treasurer Mr. Denis Cranston

Hon. Secretary Mrs. Rutha Titterton

Programme Secretary Mr. John Titterton

Committee:

Miss M.K. Gilligan

Mr. D.G. Richbell

Mrs. M. Vaughan

After the AGM John and Rutha showed us a small selection of their "Goss" armorial ware specifically collected for its Ashbourn coat of arms. We then had a report from Mike Thompson on his recent trip to London to present the Badge of the Royal Observer Corps to the RAF.

[Photographs courtesy of the ROC Association]

Mike, the Badge and Peter Owen (from RAF News)

The following is a report first published on the ROC Association web site [My thanks to them]:

On Tuesday18th March a group of former ROC members met at the Hard ROCk Café for coffee before moving on to the RAF Club a hundred yards away, where we had been invited to attend the presentation of an ROC Badge to the club by Mike Thompson, a former member of 16 Group, 16 Post Poynton.

On entering the RAF Club and being directed to the Cowdray Lounge bar we were welcomed by Peter Owen the General Manager and Secretary of the Club, and offered wine or soft drinks.

Mike then gave an excellent talk on the history of the ROC and the reasons why he felt that the ROC Badge should be on display within the RAF Club. He then made the presentation of a framed ROC Badge to the Club, along with an ROC 50th Anniversary Commemorative Plate and a special version of the ROC Squadron Print of the wartime Spitfire, 'Observer Corps' 'EB-Z'.

ROC Squadron Prints of the Spitfire were also presented by Mike to AM Cliff Spink, AVM George Black and Roy McDowell.

Peter Owen announced that the club would provide drinks and buffet lunch in the lounge. This very generous offer was very much appreciated by everyone present.

We were all very proud to be at the presentation, and felt a debt of gratitude to Mike for bringing his idea to fruition.

The Badge will be on display in the Badges Corridor, which is covered from floor to ceiling with paintings of RAF squadron badges and other units.

A little piece of England in Scotland (Royal Gates)

H.R.H. the Duke of Rothesay is due to unveil the new gates at Glamis Castle today and a splendid example of workmanship they are. It's just a pity that no one checked the correct Scottish version of the armorial bearings of the late Queen Mother before embarking on the project to feature them on the gates.

The arms look wonderful and they are a super example of heraldic craftsmanship but unfortunately they are H.M.'s English armorial bearings!

The Scottish version of her arms show the English quarterings and the Scottish quarterings transposed (the Scots one first) and should have a unicorn and a lion as supporters. The Scottish version would also be more likely to show H.M.'s Thistle rather than Garter.  Below is an image of H.M.'s hatchment courtesy of The St. Andrew's Fund for Heraldry to illustrate what her Scottish arms should look like:

Cheshire Heraldry Society - A.G.M.

Fast approaching is the Annual General Meeting of the Cheshire Heraldry Society to be held at the usual time and venue on Saturday 19th April.

Details can be found on the Society's web page:

 http://cheshire-heraldry.org.uk/society

See you there.

Connections and conspirators.

I am always pleasantly surprised when I come across any armorial connections with Cheshire and this week has proved no exception when, whilst emblazoning the arms of the Gunpowder Plotters for a PowerPoint presentation I am preparing, I found that the family of Wintour quartered the arms of both Keveliok and Lupus in the arms recorded in the Visitations of Worcestershire for the year 1569.

Quarter 7; Azure, three garbs Or [Keveliok]*

Quarter 8; Azure, a wolf's head erased Argent [Lupus]

In addition, quarter 5; Gules, a lion rampant Or, is recorded in the Winter (Wintour) achievement as belonging to Dabigney (d'Aubigny Earls of Arundel); this is also the coat of Randolph Gernons, fourth Earl of Chester.

Quite an achievement!

Robert Wintour was executed on 30 January 1606 at St. Paul's Churchyard, together with Sir Everard Digby, John Grant and Thomas Bates. On the scaffold, he was quiet and withdrawn, and did not speak much. Although he appeared to be praying to himself, he did not publicly ask mercy of either God or the King for his offence.

Robert's brother, Thomas Wintour, was executed on 31st January 1606  at Old Palace Yard, Westminster, sharing the scaffold with Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes, and Guy Fawkes.

* This is a possible error of either blazon or descent as the arms of Keveliok are more commonly known to be Azure, six garbs, 3, 2 and 1 Or.

My Goodness!

I have recently been searching through my old copies of "The Coat of Arms", the (what used to be quarterly) magazine of The Heraldry Society, for an article I intend to mercilessly plagiarise to form the basis of an illustrated talk (credit of course will be given to the original author), when I came across a rather clever advertisement for Guinness in the July 1958 issue. I thought you might like to see it and so reproduce it here:

A Jurisdictional Enigma

Some years ago I had occasion to briefly meet with a gentleman from The United States of America who bore what I understand to be legitimate Scottish armorial bearings with a remarkable likeness to those of a the very old Cheshire family and I have to say, it gave me a feeling of unease. Now I ought to say that I have nothing against the gentleman himself  but unfortunately, throughout our brief meeting, I had no opportunity to question him about his armorial bearings.  I do however know that Major Randal Massey of Dunham acquired a new grant of arms (and recognition of his territorial designation "of Dunham") after purchasing a piece of land in Orkney, naming it Dunham, and thus coming under the jurisdiction, as the owner of land in Scotland, of the Lord Lyon. I'm a little uneasy with the naming of a new piece of land "Dunham" but it is not the use of the name Massey of Dunham which concerns me in this note, it is the armorial bearings Lyon granted anew to Major Massey.

I have not seen the Letters Patent so have no detail other than the image reproduced on the web site of the Society of Scottish Armigers but the arms of Major Massey appear to be:

 Massey of Dunham (modern Scottish)
Arms: Quarterly Gules and Or, in the first and fourth quarters three fleur-de-lis Argent, a canton Argent for difference.
Crest: A demi-pegasus with wings displayed quarterly Gules and Or.

Now take a look at the arms of Massey of Coddington (Cheshire)

Massey of Coddington (ancient English)
arms: Quarterly Gules and Or, in the first and fourth quarters three fleur-de-lis Argent, a canton Argent for difference.
Crest: A demi-pegasus with wings displayed quarterly Or and Gules

These arms appear to be identical with the subtle difference in a reversal of the tinctures in the quartering of the crest alone. I seem to remember that when the College of Arms granted me my own armorial bearings they were careful to check to see that there were none similar in Scotland. It does not appear to me that a similar exercise took place in reversal when the Massey of Dunham arms were granted!

Note also the motto which is pure Massey of Dunham-Massey of Cheshire. Major Massey is clearly proud of his surname but I have to have reservations over the reasons (or indeed how!) Lyon was persuaded to grant arms all but identical to those used lawfully by an ancient and landed English family.

Cadency marks - heirs and graces.

First off, I would like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed my monthly visit to the Cheshire Heraldry Society Lecture on Saturday even though I was suffering from the onset of a cold. The lecture was given by the Chairman of the society, Harold Storey and it was patent to see that not only was he knowledgeable on his hobby of collecting bookplates but also extremely enthusiastic. We were pleased to be shown numerous photographic slides which represented but a tiny fraction of his collection; a collection which began over fifty years ago when, after reading a chapter on the hobby in Lynch-Robinson's Intelligible Heraldry, he thought that as there couldn't possibly be anyone else collecting bookplates, he might as well be the first!

He soon learned that not only wasn't he the first, he was also a long, long way behind the real enthusiasts .... indeed, in the early days of his collecting, he was concerned that the cost of sevenpence ha'penny ( a tuppence ha'penny stamp, plus another enclosed on a stamped addressed envelope for the anticipated reply and then yet another on a thank you letter to those who had sent him a plate) might break the bank!

Judging by the size of his collection, not only wasn't he put off by the cost but I think he may well have caught the others up by now.

When we are out and about, attending lectures or just generally observing what heraldry is to be seen, we shouldn't always accept at face value and without question, what we see. Amongst the many examples of bookplates shown by Harold, I noticed one which, to me at least seemed to be rather strange in the way the label, denoting that the plate belonged to an heir apparent, was displayed. I questioned the chosen method of display and one of the Society's long standing members "strongly disagreed" - Harold kindly allowed some debate to take place but I am afraid that a combination of the heat of the room and the imminent onset of a heavy cold coupled with a respect for the member who challenged my view, meant that I simply did not have the will to press forward my argument and as a consequence I think that I may have failed to make my point at all clear.

On the basis that I am feeling a wee bit better and declaring that of course I will allow a right of reply if my views are once again challenged, I re-state my case here for all to see.

I regret that I don't have an image of the bookplate in question but it showed the cadency mark of a crescent (second son) upon which was displayed a label. I illustrate a "generic" example of what I saw below:

My instinct was that this was not a proper use of cadency and that this particular choice of display was wrong. It is my view that once an English armiger chooses to use a cadency mark to denote where he stands in the pecking order of the family, that cadency mark then becomes a permanent part of the arms; it therefore seems logical to me that his heir apparent ought to use the label in exactly the same way his cousin, who is heir apparent to the undifferenced arms, would.

Unlike all the other cadency marks, which are permanent, the label is not permanent and its function is to boldly bebruise the arms of the father during his lifetime.

Once an armiger has decided to use cadency marks to mark his place in the family he has in effect created an entirely new set of arms; the arms of a cadet branch of the family. It is a perfectly proper rule, though proven to be unwieldy in practice, to place one cadency mark on top of another to denote, say, the third son of a second son of the house. To see a martlet on top of a crescent would be perfectly proper but to include a label in this scheme, is, in my view at least, silly.

Once the second son has created his new coat of arms thus:

His heir apparent should use a label thus:

In sum, I do not think it at all appropriate to use a label as a minor mark of cadency upon another mark of cadency.