Post by s***@gmail.comHi all,
http://www.rootsmusic.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/McGillivray-Coat-of-Arms.jpg
At the Annual Meeting of the Royal Heraldry Society of Canada held in Edmonton on the 24th of September, 2005, we heard a variety of interesting comments about many renderings of arms. One speaker used an illustration which is found on the online database for Library and Archives Canada (LAC, previously named the National Archives of Canada)), being labelled as "Coat of Arms of the North West Company of Canada 1783-1821. " This designation is easily disputed. The first part was printed in Heraldry In Canada (2006), with a transcription of the text of the 1823 grant.
Figure 1: C147525 LAC
They are closely related to those of William McGillivray. The painting was donated in 1957 by John McGillivray Dawkins, grandson of Simon McGillivray , brother to William. It is estimated as having been created between 1800 and 1820 . Auguste Vachon reports that "They were described as the arms of the North West Company on the envelope which contained the drawing... " One can see the source of the design. Since the North West Company used canoes as their method of transport, then it is reasonable to understand the presence of such in the position of honour in the chief. This design had certainly followed the grant made by the Lord Lyon in 1801 to William MacGillivray, blazoned as "Azure, a galley, sails furled, oars in action, Or, flagged Gules, within a bordure Argent, on a chief of the second a buck's head cabossed Sable, attired of the third, between two cross crosslets fitchée of the last. Crest: A buck's head and neck issuing proper, attired Or. Motto: Be Mindful."
In her book McGillivray - Lord of the Northwest, Marjorie Wilkins Campbell writes that this Scottish grant occurred as part of a wedding trip to Scotland with his new bride Magdalen McDonald, daughter of the late Sir John McDonald of Garth, whom he had married on the 22nd of December 1800 at the St. Mary le Bone parish church in London .
There is no grant to the North West Company at the College of Arms of this design or any other, nor in the Public Register of All Arms and Bearings in Scotland at the Court of the Lord Lyon. If a grant of arms had existed already for the Company, then McGillivray would probably not have been motivated to pursue an English grant for himself as a 'remembrance.'
The 1823 Letters Patent contains wording : the Memorialists being desirous to transmit to their Descendants the remembrance of these events by bearing in their Armorial Ensigns some allusion thereto they therefore requested the favour of His Lordship's Warrant for Our granting and assigning such...
Later in 2010, having looked at the first one (C147525) at Library and Archives of Canada, I can confirm that it is a painting of arms lawfully granted by the Kings of Arms at the College of Arms, London, England, on 6 June 1823. Our office of the Chief Herald of Canada has been receiving new paintings from the College of Arms of arms granted to Canadians. Each one is accompanied by a certificate from Garter King of Arms giving particulars of the grant and the technical description (blazon) of the design. We have received such a painting and certificate for the grant to William McGillivray and his younger brother Simon.
Figure 2: C-008711 LAC
The second painting(C-00871) is interesting. One key fact to note is that the scroll beneath the shield is blank. This means that the painting was not completed, because that is where a calligrapher would write the motto. Such motto scroll is complete in the first painting.
The first painting matches the illustration that appears in a facsimile of the original document. It appears in the microfilm of Hudson's Bay Records in the drawers of the self-service area: HBC 5M15. About half-way through the reel is an image F6/5. The text is not legible. The description tag says that the document is 29.75 inches x 19.5 inches. It typically shows the painting of the new arms and the full text of the grant.
Returning to the first image, it is called a Library Painting, and typically is only the arms. It would probably have been produced at the same time as the original Letters Patent. If the full-text document went to William, then this painting of only the arms could have been made for Simon.
What about the second image, the motto-less one? I believe that it was a preliminary drawing made when the arms were under discussion with Garter about what they should be (a practice that our office also follows). The canoe is in an area called the "chief." Everything below that is actually the design that was granted by the Lord Lyon King of Arms in 1801 to William MacGillivray (4 March 1801; Vol. 1, page 584 of the Public Register at Lyon Court). The Lord Lyon granted these arms to William alone, when he was relatively unknown. In 1823, the Garter King of Arms proposed to adapt this along the lines in the design by adding the canoe in the chief to commemorate his activities in the North West Company and record a reference to his exploits in the text of the document (see "McGillivray: Lord of the Northwest" by Marjorie Wilkins Campbell (1962)). As being only a possible suggestion as a design, there would be no need to fill in the motto. However, it appears that this design was not accepted. Certainly the final design shows more identification of William as a McGillivray: the other three quarters follow the style of West Highland grants - in particular the arms of Macgillivray of Dunmaghlas whose arms have differences made to produce the final design - and they reflect items from the motto.
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ICON 60132. LAC database http://www.collectionscanada.ca/archivianet/02011603_e.html
Jennifer Devine, Art Archivist at LAC, 21 February 2006. Notes were handwritten on the original brown mailing envelope. Dawkins lived at 155 Woodstock Road, Oxford.
ICON 60132.
Vachon, Auguste, "Heraldic Treasures of the National Archives of Canada," Heraldry In Canada (Speakers' Journal), Vol 22., No. 5, December 1988, p. 27
4 March 1801, Vol. I, page 584. See An Ordinary of Arms, Vol I, 2nd Edition (1903) by Sir James Balfour Paul, (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1969 reprint) page 195, item #2892; and the Roll of Scottish Arms Part I Volume II edited by Lt. Colonel Gayre of Gayre and Nigg (The Armorial, 1969), page 258.
Clarke, Irwin & Company Limited, 1962. page 317. The book omits research footnotes and endnotes. Campbell's materials are at the McCord Museum of Canadian History in Montreal, Quebec.
Campbell, page 112.
No English grant has been made to the North West Company reports Henry Bedingfeld, York Herald, 1 February 2006.
