Yesterday, the Lord Lyon presented the Letters Patent granting arms for the City of Dunfermline to Cllr Jim Leishman, Provost of Fife. Scotland’s State Trumpeters with Marchmont Herald, Albany Herald Extraordinary and Bute Pursuivant attended. The artist was Sarah Coomer.
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The Lord Lyon and March Pursuivant Extraordinary joined Air Officer Scotland and the Chief of the Air Staff for the Beating of the Retreat at Balmoral Castle where the King presented the RAF with a new Pipe Banner.
On the 12th July, the Lord Lyon visited the Grand Lodge Museum of New South Wales and discovered this grant to the Grand Lodge signed by Garter Woodcock with the current arms used by the Grand Lodge.
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The Lord Lyon has granted arms to John William Stephen MStJ. The artist was Yvonne Holton.
The blazon is: Argent on a chevron betwixt two crescents in chief and a sinister hand couped Gules, a Latin cross between two escallops of the First, debruised of a label of three points Azure in the lifetime of his father. The crest is a sea-dog.
In the Lord Lyon's absence on holiday, John received his grant in front of the next best thing.
This is the reply of the Warden and Fellows of Wadham College Oxford
to a set of demands from student protestors in 1968:
"Dear Gentlemen: We note your threat to take what you call ‘direct action’ unless your demands are immediately met. We feel it is only sporting to remind you that our governing body includes three experts in chemical warfare, two ex-commandos skilled with dynamite and torturing prisoners, four qualified marksmen in both small arms and rifles, two ex-artillerymen, one holder of the Victoria Cross, four karate experts and a chaplain. The governing body has authorized me to tell you that we look forward with confidence to what you call a ‘confrontation,’ and I may say, with anticipation."
This splendid photograph of Roddy Macpherson, Unicorn Pursuivant, hides a fascinating tale.
Unicorn takes up the tale himself:
Lyon Macer David Walker took this photograph of Unicorn, former Lyon Macer, in the Signet Library, in front of the portrait of Joseph Grant WS, last Secretary of the Society of Messengers-at-Arms, Edinburgh (instituted by 1631, Lyon with power to select its box masters, and dissolved in 1865). Joseph’s father, Allan Grant, messenger-at-arms in Edinburgh, often Preses of that Society of Messengers-at-Arms, and Unicorn’s grandfather, Alexander Macpherson, messenger-at-arms in Glasgow, sometime President of the Society of Messengers-at-Arms and Sheriff Officers (founded 1922 and still going strong, with the Lord Lyon as its Honorary President) were, as was discovered in time for a Lord Lyon Society lecture in 2022 (the centenary of 1922, of course), distant cousins. To be pursuivantly precise, they were third cousins, four times removed.
On the recent retirement from service of Islay Herald (Mrs Yvonne Holton) and Rothesay Herald (Mr Liam Devlin), the Lord Lyon has made the following promotions which will have effect from 1 August 2024:
Sheriff George Way of Plean (formerly Carrick Pursuivant) becomes Rothesay Herald in Ordinary
Mr John Stirling, WS (formerly Ormond Pursuivant) becomes Ross Herald in Ordinary
Prof. Gillian Black (formerly Linlithgow Pursuivant Extraordinary) becomes Carrick Pursuivant in Ordinary
Mr Colin Russell (formerly Falkland Pursuivant Extraordinary) becomes Bute Pursuivant in Ordinary
From 1 August 2024 the full complement of HM Officers of Arms will be:
Marchmont Herald The Hon. Adam Bruce, WS, CStJ
Rothesay Herald Sheriff George Way of Plean CStJ
Ross Herald Mr John Stirling, WS
Unicorn Pursuivant Mr Roderick Macpherson
Carrick Pursuivant Professor Gillian Black
Bute Pursuivant Mr Colin Russell OStJ
March Pursuivant Extraordinary Mr Philip Tibbetts
Angus Herald Extraordinary Mr Robin Blair, CVO, WS
Albany Herald Extraordinary Sir Crispin Agnew of Lochnaw Bart, LVO, KC
The Lord Lyon celebrates at the Edinburgh 900 Launch with the Tartan Register staff and the Tartan Kimono.
The Lord Lyon and Officers of Arms were in attendance today on HM The King in the Thistle Chapel for the installation of five new members of the Order of the Thistle: HM The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, the forensic anthropologist Baroness Black of Strome, the eminent barrister Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws and the distinguished scientist Sir Geoff Palmer.
The Lord Lyon and Officers of Arms attended Their Majesties The King and Queen at the Ceremony of the Keys at Edinburgh Castle and followed by the Opening Event marking the 900th birthday of the City of Edinburgh.
From the Public Register exactly two hundred years ago today, July 1st 1824: the arms of Lewis Alexander Grant-Ogilvie, 5th Earl of Seafield.
These were rematriculated in 1916 by the Dowager Countess on behalf of her young daughter, Nina Ogilvie-Grant, 12th Countess of Seafield in her own right:
Today is the 200th birthday of William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, OM, GCVO, PC, FRS, FRSE (26 June 1824 – 17 December 1907), mathematician, mathematical physicist and engineer born in Belfast. He became Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, where he had been a student at the age of ten, and held the chair for 53 years, undertaking significant research and mathematical analysis of electricity, being instrumental in the formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics. He received the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1883 and served as its president from 1890 to 1895. In 1892, he became one of the first British scientists to be elevated to the House of Lords.
Thomson's first wife was an armigerous lady, Margaret Crum, daughter of Walter Crum of Thornliebank who was granted these arms in 1868:
