A ship’s wheel, a lion, a wheat sheaf and a
cherub
by
Mike Oettle
Mauritius / lion / Bonham / Burrell / Woolard / ship’s wheel / Howard Morris / Shaun Morris / Keith Morris
DESIGNING a coat of arms can be a complex process, as Warren and Gloria Morris learned when they started putting together elements from the arms of the families they were descended from to create a new device for themselves in May 2002.
And on 5 June 2002 they visited the Bureau of Heraldry to get the official process under way.
But fate can intervene, too, as it was only in August 2004 that the arms were finally registered in the name of Warren Francis Morris . . . in the interim Gloria (née Woolard) had died suddenly in February 2003, and Warren had on 26 June 2004 married her cousin, Denise Mulder, née Venish.
I’ll start at the end of the process and illustrate the finished product, together with its formal description. The signatures of the National Herald and his deputy appear on certificate No 3436, issued in terms of the Heraldry Act of 1962, on 23 August 2004. The blazon reads:
Arms: Azure, on a pile embowed inverted throughout Argent, a lion
rampant gules, armed Argent, holding in its claws a cross paty Vert, between in
chief dexter a ship’s wheel Or, the spokes in the form of lightning flashes of
the second, and sinister a garb Or, at its base dexter charged with the upper
part of a shepherd’s crook placed in bend and in sinister the upper part of a
hayfork placed in bend sinister proper.
Crest: A demi-cherub holding an olive branch proper.
Wreath and Mantling: Azure and Argent tasselled Or.
Motto: Fidelitas.
Morris, Morrice, Maurice and Mauritius:
Before discussing the arms, a brief excursion on the name Morris.
The name Morris is an anglicisation and a shortening of the Latin Mauritius, which means “a Moor”, that is to say an inhabitant of the region we now know as the countries Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia (or at least Morocco and western and central Algeria). This region is known in Arabic as al Maghrib.[1]
Mauritius was also the name of a Roman soldier, also remembered in English and in French as Maurice, in German as Moritz and in Dutch and Afrikaans as Maurits, who in or about the year 286 AD was sent in command of a detachment of the Theban Legion to crush a revolt among Christian peasants in an Alpine district that now forms part of Canton Valais, in Switzerland. It seems, then, that he was not a Moor at all, but he bore that name all the same.
Mauritius and his men – who according to the record of their martyrdom which we have from Bishop St Eucherius of Lyon (died 499) were Christians from Egypt – refused to make war against fellow Christians, and withdrew in protest to the town of Agaunum.[2]
Their commanding general Maximian (who was later to become emperor) punished the troops for what he called their cowardice, ordering them decimated: that is, one man in 10 was executed. This had no effect on them, and he again ordered a decimation. When they still refused to obey, every one of them, including Mauritius, was beheaded.
Maurice subsequently became a favourite saint in many parts of the German- and French-speaking world, and is often to be seen in the coats of arms of communities where he is the patron saint. However, artists have traditionally overemphasised the darkness of his skin, and portray him as a Negro,[3] with red lips and gold earrings.
The German city of Coburg[4] to this day bears for its arms a gold shield bearing Maurice’s head – the arms date back to the 14th century. In only one period of its history was it felt improper: in 1934, under nazi influence, the head of Maurice was removed and a black and gold shield was used bearing a sword with a swastika at its hilt. In 1945 Maurice’s head was again to be seen symbolising the city.
The name Mauritius is one that was introduced to England in the Norman period. It might in some instances have been connected with a devotion to St Maurice, but in other cases it was merely a nickname for someone with a swarthy appearance.
“A Fulco filius Mauricii is recorded as living in Lincolnshire in 1185; a Josce Mauricii is listed in the Pipe Rolls in London in 1191; a Ricardus filius Morys is recorded in the Subsidy Rolls in Yorkshire in 1297.
“Morris is the family name of the Barons Killanin.”[5]
About the arms:
The shield is divided effectively into three segments, blue, white, and blue, through the placement of the charges on the pile (a triangular charge, in this case inverted, that is, arising out of the shield base and pointing to the top, and embowed or bent inwards on either side).
On the pile stands a red rampant lion holding in its paws a green cross (paty describes its shape, with broad ends and curving inwards to the centre). Unusually, the lion has silver claws.[6]
A lion was chosen because several British families surnamed Morris or Morrice bear arms incorporating rampant lions and, in one instance, a lion passant. In an early stage of the design process, the lion was blue, but red seemed more suitable on a silver field between two segments of blue.
Warren’s ancestry includes a line of descent from King Robert I of Scotland. Before proclaiming himself King of Scots and adopting the red lion rampant on gold (within a royal tressure) of the Scottish royal house, Robert had borne the arms of Annandale. However, before his ancestor had married the heiress of Annandale, the family had borne the blue lion rampant on silver that is still borne by some branches of the family Bruce.[7]
The cross is taken from the Bonham family. Warren’s ancestor John Bonham of Ballintaggart, County Kildare, in Ireland, bore a silver chevron between three silver crosses paty on a red shield, and in addition a cherub for his crest. The illustration of his arms that Warren tracked down shows a disembodied cherubic head floating in mid-air, the tips of the wings attached to its jaws just touching the crest-wreath.
The Bonham family has traditionally borne arms with a variety of crosses: another branch has crosses paty fitchy[8] (with a pointed foot), while another has crosses formy fitchy, and yet another cross-crosslets fitchy.
Warren’s paternal grandmother was Alice Bonham. Her mother-in-law was Jessie Mary Burrell.
From the Burrell family, Warren took two elements. The baronets Burrell, of Sussex, bore a green shield charged with silver escutcheons (small shields), each having an engrailed gold border.
Their crest is an arm holding a laurel branch. This crest was also borne by Warren’s ancestor William Burrell, of Beckenham, Kent, in England. In Warren’s original sketch, the arm holding the laurel branch appears in the upper dexter portion of the shield.
In an early draft prepared by the Bureau, the upper sinister third of the shield bore an inescutcheon (a silver outline, filled in blue, which would be blazoned as an inescutcheon argent, voided of the field) charged with a silver cross paty.
The lion (blue, at that stage) held in its forepaws a red cross humetty (symbolising Gloria’s voluntary work for the Red Cross organisation). However, Deputy State Herald Marcel van Rossum suggested that using the red cross was too strong a symbol, since Gloria’s work was administrative, rather than caring for suffering people, and instead placed the cross paty (now coloured green) between the lion’s paws.
Warren’s intial design incorporated a crest with agricultural symbols, but when these were moved to the shield, he proposed a crest combining the cherub of the Bonhams and the Burrell arm (it is actually blazoned as a naked arm) with its laurel branch – in fact he sketched two arms, one on either side of the cherub’s face.
The very workable compromise was that instead of a cherub’s head, a demi-cherub appeared on top of the helmet, issuant[9] from the crest-wreath and holding a laurel branch in its dexter hand.
The crest with its agricultural symbols represented Gloria’s family, the Woolards, who were farmers from Mildenhall in Suffolk,[10] England. The name Woolard is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Wulfheard, meaning “strongwolf”, and it currently also is found in the spellings Woollard and Wollard. Mediæval spellings include Wluuard and Vluuard.
These symbols were a wheat sheaf (in heraldic terminology, a garb) with, crossed behind it, a shepherd’s crook and a pitchfork (or hay fork).[11] On its dexter side was a rose and the sinister side a carnation.
When these symbols were moved into the shield, the flowers fell away and the crook and fork were reduced to the metal ends of the implements, without their wooden shafts. Instead of being crossed behind the garb, they now appeared in front of it.
The rose survived by being placed on the helmet as a symbol of English heritage (and is not mentioned in the blazon). Warren described it as a Tudor rose,[12] and it could quite possibly at some stage have been intended to be the red and white rose of King Henry VII, but it has in fact been drawn as red only, making it a symbol of the House of Lancaster.
The most personal symbol in the achievement is the ship’s wheel in the upper dexter corner. This symbolises Warren’s love of the sea – he has for several years been working on a book listing the shipwrecks of Algoa Bay.
Instead of the normal shafts inside the wheel’s circle, he has silver lightning flashes, which stand for his trade as an electrician.
The motto, Fidelitas, means “trust” or “faithfulness”.
The arms among Warren’s descendants:
Every coat of arms belongs to one person and, during his (or her) lifetime, only that one person.
This means that while Warren’s arms will pass to his descendants, each of them must add his own mark of difference, to show who he is, and also to show that he is not usurping Warren’s device.
I say “he” because each of Warren’s three sons has a son of his own, so unless the male line fails, these arms will not pass through any of Warren’s three granddaughters to their descendants, although they will be entitled to display their father’s arms.
Warren’s eldest son, Howard, must add a label of three points, which will fall away on Warren’s death.
The rule of heraldic colour contrast is somewhat relaxed when it comes to marks of difference, because they frequently have to pass over or alongside most of the shield. So the rule that bans colour on colour is not strictly applied. In fact, a red label would seem to be the most suitable, since it runs across mostly blue parts of the shield as well as gold charges.[13]
Howard’s son James adds a label of five points, which in due course will become a label of three points, and eventually disappear when he inherits Warren’s arms.
The two younger sons, Shaun and Keith, must each add a permanent mark of difference which will pass down to their descendants.
The usual English practice is to add small marks called brisures: a crescent for the second son, a mullet (five-pointed star) for the third, a martlet[14] (a swallow-like bird without beak or claws) for the fourth and so on.
But these marks tend to get messy after a few generations, and the Scottish Stodart system allows for more flexibility.
I have assigned them borders – the colours I have chosen are arbitrary, and they are free to change them, but once they have exercised their choices, these marks then become permanent and heritable.
For Shaun I have added a red border, and for his son Connor an ermine label of three points. Red is still a suitable colour for a difference mark, since the border goes around blue and silver, but this means the label must be in a contrasting colour. Silver would be acceptable over the blue, gold and red portions, but it does not stand out against the silver background. Adding the ermine spots allows the middle point of the label also to stand out.
For Keith I chose a gold border, and for his son Kelvin a red label. Red remains a suitable colour for the label.
As with Howard and James’s labels, those for Connor and Kelvin will eventually fall away, or pass down to their eldest sons.
Should Shaun or Keith have further sons, or should more than one son be born to Connor or Kelvin (this is way in the future, since they are boys at the time of writing), their borders can be differenced through changes in the partition lines.
Regarding Warren’s granddaughters, Aimée (Shaun’s daughter), Nicola and Lisa Mari (Keith’s daughters), each may use her father’s arms. Until they marry, they will display these arms on a lozenge (the shape of a playing-card diamond) or on an oval-shaped cartouche.
When they marry, they may display their father’s arms on the sinister half of a shield, with the husband’s arms on the dexter half (this is only permitted if the husband has a coat of arms in the first place).
And should they be widowed, they then return to the lozenge or cartouche, but retaining the husband’s arms on the dexter half.
