Interesting Heraldic Bookplates

J. Walpole D’Oyly

Crest armorial with motto in ribbon above blazon – Omne Solum Forti Patria - Every land is a homeland for the courageous man; and below also in a ribbon, Do no Ylle, Quoth D’Oylle

(- Sir Charles D’Oyly’s motto, Otago Witness , Issue 1964, 11 July 1889, Page 32; http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=OW18890711.2.103.6).

The blazon is a demi-dragon holding a fleur-de-lis between its hands.

Patrick W.V. Dudgeon

Plain Armorial with motto inside ribbon at base – With Heart and Hand.

As blazon, from a heart a hand holding a sword. In the shield a chevron divided, a mullet star divided, and lions face with water coming from its mouth, a heart with a sword running through it. There’s a name hand written in ink on the bookplate – J. A. Bennet (could be J.A. Bennett, Australia, 1853 – 1929 – Painter).

Patrick William Vilet Dudgeon, 1818 - Circa 1866
(http://www.myheritage.com/names/patrick_dudgeon)

John Duerdin

19th Century bookplate. Crest armorial with motto in ribbon at base: Le bon jour viendra - Good times will come.

The blazon is a pine tree.

Born in Great Marsden, Lancashire, England on 17 Aug 1740 to Jonathon Duerden. John married Elizabeth Whittaker and had 12 children. He passed away on 27 Mar 1805 in Colne, Lancashire, England. 

(http://www.ancestry.com.au/genealogy/records/john-duerden_177608986?geo_a=r&o_iid=41019&o_lid=41019&o_sch=Web+Property)

Henry Thomas Dunster

A Crest Armorial. As blazon – out of the top of a tower with two cross-windows, an arm cuffed holding a spear.

Henry Thomas Dunster (1833 - 1916), b. 1833 at Battle, Sussex, England; m. 1863 Mary McGrath ( - 1943) at Gundagai, NSW #1998_1863; d. 1916 at Adelong, NSW #5957_1916 aged 83.

(http://suzieq.net.au/HTMLFiles/HTMLFiles_40/P43171.html)

Richard Dyott

A Cloak and shield armorial. As blazon, a heraldic tiger, passant, chained and ringed. On the shield, two more tigers, a fess of vair pattern and a inescutcheon with a cinquefoil.

Richard Dyott (1808 – 13 February 1891) was an English Conservative Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1865 to 1880. 

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dyott_(died_1891))

A list of heraldry links

Over the process of the last few months, these websites have become a treasure chest of information for my research. Every part of a heradic shield imparts information about the owner and the family that they have come from. The Graham bookplates collection contains work from the C18th onwards, with remarkable examples of heraldry design and illustration of the era.

http://www.bookplatesociety.org/styles.html

http://www.internationalheraldry.com/

http://www.araltas.com/services/motto.html

http://myblazon.com/heraldry/symbolism/w/40

http://www.heraldryclipart.com/dh.html

http://rameset.com/heraldry.htm

http://www.digiserve.com/heraldry/symbols.htm

http://www.myfamilysilver.com/pages/crestfinder-crest.aspx?id=137153&name=Bragge

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_(heraldry)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_(heraldry)

http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/vxt-h1a.html

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Complete_Guide_to_Heraldry

I have also been compiling a scribbled library of terms which I will upload too.

An Introduction or A Treatise on the Divination of Heraldry

So how did I come to be researching the fascinating, yet obscure topic of Heraldic Bookplates?
Last year I took the paper: 213.358 Fine Arts Internship at Massey University. The idea of this paper is to: form new connections and relationships in the industry, to cultivate and extend your skills, to discover all about what your professional sponsor does. The timeframe - 100 hours in blocks or single days over three months. I was lucky enough to be able to secure a place at the Alexander Turnbull Library under Ephemera Curator, Barbara Lyon.

Barbara Lyon had a lovely project in mind for me - to help catalogue a bookplate collection (collected from far and wide by the very interesting David H Graham).

“The David H Graham bookplate collection has been under my purview, although it is not officially part of the Ephemera  Collection. Around half of it has been catalogued (about 10-15 years ago), but there are still many boxes whose contents are not listed. I think a volunteer could and list the contents of each box -  and this could then be transferred to TAPUHI/TIAKI by an ATL staff member. I imagine that someone with the interests Jess has may find this appealing.”

The bookplates are not part of the Ephemera Collection, but they may interest you from the design point of view.

They are part of the David H Graham collection, and arrived in the Library around 1965. See http://natlib.govt.nz/records/23247382 . From there you can navigate to the “child” records, ie records for the folders that have already been described.

Most of the New Zealand, Australian, British and American plates have been described. The boxes that remain to be catalogued are non-New Zealand, some dating back several centuries.

And so, Barbara got me to start with the Heraldic section of David H Graham's collection. (I really have to say here that that decision was pretty much like a match made in heaven for me). 

As part of my describing the bookplates, I began with the name inscribed on the bookplate, then the approximate era of the bookplate, and then moved onto describing the heraldic information. This was a part I definately enjoyed very much. In order to go about this, I had to begin to learn about which different parts of the heraldic plate meant, what their motifs were, and what the attitudes of the people and animals represented meant. 

To begin to date a heraldic plate, I would look at the style of the bookplate to try to decipher its age. If this was difficult, looking up the name on the plate next was useful - often information about people in the 18th and 19th centuries was recorded into a census, or legal documents, or in birth and death records. Often there were two or three people with the same name, so then looking at the bookplate styles again would enable me to refocus which person and which era the bookplate belonged to. 

More important than the person who commissioned the bookplate was the sculptor (or to us - the engraver), because this also made it easier to refine the date it was made.

Another area to describe on the bookplate was the motto, and there are some very interesting ones indeed! This is where my 3rd and 4th form Latin came in handy (along with a few translation websites and especially this page: http://www.araltas.com/services/motto.html ).

And so I was entrusted with the glorious task of researching heraldic bookplates. 

The Library over the course of the time I started my internship (Nov 2015), began to upgrade to a new cataloging system, and so the decision was made for me to work in a simple word document to record all the details from each bookplate. This was divided into three sections: who the plate was commissioned for, description (including mottoes, and main motifs shown), and finally the date (based on the owner or sculptor).

As part of my reporting back in this blog I have taken a few iphone pictures of some of the plates I found most interesting. (These are in a separate blog post, Interesting Heraldic Bookplates).