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School Badge / Coat of Arms
The photograph is of the Coat of Arms of Preston Grammar School. It appears on both War Memorials, now in Preston Minster (Parish Church), and in the panel on the front of School books and the dust jacket and page 94 of Jim Heppell’s History. {You should have the History at hand as there are several cross-references.} Before going any further, a badge is not a coat of arms; a crest is not a coat of arms but is an addition placed above the shield.
In the Old Boys Magazine Number 7, January 1913, under the somewhat uninspiring title “The Missing Word Competition” the first paragraph is about the editor struggling with the first edition - December 1910. I looked at this heading and especially the funny titles and turned over the page on numerous occasions over a fairly long period of time before deciding to try reading further. The editor had an idea - forget about a fancy title for the Magazine (The Magpie, The Grid, The Lamb Cutlet, or The Chantecleer being suggestions which would lead any reader to believe this was a somewhat puerile literary effort by some frustrated author) and have a block for the front cover. Which is “how we came to have the arms of the dear old School there.” That wakened me up! I read on. When he ordered the block, the maker could not decipher the words of the text around the closed book in the top sinister corner. The editor had no knowledge of heraldry! Descriptions of a coat of arms start from the premise that a man has his left arm held across his chest passing through loops on the back of his shield. He then looks over the top to see what is painted on his shield. His right - dexter - as he looks over the top is your left as you look at the shield face-on. The closed book is actually in the dexter chief. His top right, your top left. The editor, Keith Moore, a 25 year old killed in action 1916, told the block maker to put in something which was nothing, but didn’t look like it. And nobody noticed.
Until a scholar and his wife visited and, with a friend of the School, examined the [rubbish] text and were puzzled. Couldn’t make out if it was German, Latin or Old English! So Moore took them to the School where they studied the original stonework, without that being any help. Then went to the Town Historian - they had one in those days. The Historian, a lawyer, managed to work out that the last three letters of the motto were IRE, the text was probably Latin: that as a result of careful measurement he believed it contained 13 to 15 letters. Bearing in mind the closed book, he suggested a search through a concordance of the Vulgate for quotations ending in “ire”. Searching for days before concluding another R preceded IRE. They then decided the original text was French and then decided it was not. A return visit to look up “at the crumbling stonework” was again no help.
The solution was provided by another lawyer, an Old Boy with a School prize. Inside the cover was gummed a label bearing the School arms. They then struggled with the minute type of the indistinct text until they arrived at Dignus … aperire. The second word was even more indistinct than the others but it could only be made into es. As at last reconstructed the motto read DIGNUS ES APERIRE. A motto, especially linked to a hand proffering a sealed book, of “Thou art to reveal things of worth” is highly appropriate for a School. Look at Heppell pps 92 and 94. The prize must have been of some considerable age - there were many prize winners alive and active in the Association, including Moore himself, but only one prize was produced which included the text.
The search involved a number of Old Boys. For the Historian to have carefully measured the area of the text and, obviously, studied the fragments remaining of the stone letters he must have been provided with photographs. On p92, Jim Heppell refers to the arms being of great antiquity, having been used time out of mind. What is apparent is that no Old Boy knew of the text from being passed down father to son so the text was not known within living memory, which takes it back from 1910 to around 1830 (father), son born 1860 would be only 50 years of age in 1910.
To the best of my knowledge there is only one front cover prior to Number 7 in existence. A substantial enlargement of the shield shows the made up drivel, which looked like Latin but wasn’t, which had been placed within the shield. It looks something like Crormus ermnan ediige arun which when printed larger reads as Crormus rmnan ediige arun (Crormus ermnan ediige arun) The letter i does not have dots. Not a precisely accurate type face but the best match I can find. In the original I suspect some letters are upside down and at least one has four verticals! This version does manage to cause similar confusion between e, c, r.
In 1910 or thereabouts the arms above the door of the Cross Street buildings were illegible crumbling stonework and the badge used on School printed material also did not show the text. The completely legible Dignus es aperire only came to be seen from 1912 onwards on any representation of the School Arms after this exercise in 1911 by the combined efforts of numerous talented individuals.
The Cross Street buildings were of Longridge stone, building work commencing about 1840. Go to the Public Hall, look at the inscription and coat of arms on the front. Built 1822 then extended and the bigger building was re-opened in time for the 1882 Guild. The Longridge stone inscriptions and arms are pristine after 185 and 125 years. Go along Priory Lane, fifty yards from the Cop Lane traffic lights and look at the date stone of Penwortham School - 1839, complete and unmarked. Go to Moor Park, look at the Longridge stone arms, inscription, decorative arms, roses and portcullis, dozens of them dotted around the building. Pristine after 94 years. The Cross Street buildings were 70 years old and the arms and inscription were illegible crumbling stonework. Why aren’t the old or even ancient Parish Church and stone houses of Longridge piles of crumbled stone and dust?
Two things here are crucial. Take any three Old Boys from the 1950s and ask them for the ‘motto’/ exhortation on the ribbon and they will make a fair stab at it. Perhaps no one will remember the whole but between them they will come close enough to end up with the correct text. In 1910-1911 numbers of erudite Old Boys of a wide age spread did not even know that the illegible text of the motto Dignus es aperire was in Latin.
Secondly, after searching for over forty years, enquiring of all the potential and unlikely sources, I obtained early in 2007 a battered, torn, photograph of the entrance to Cross Street buildings. The photograph was taken in either 1900 or 1903 and shows the ribbon to be so badly damaged and corroded that parts are illegible. The School Coat of Arms together with eight other Arms, badges and unrecognisable panels show much decay and damage. Longridge stone carvings are pristine after 185 years, which takes the carvings on the entrance back from 1900 to 1715, and should have been totally legible in the photograph and when Moore and company were looking up at the crumbling stonework.
The Coat of Arms is on the War Memorials which means it has to be the arms of the School and is almost certainly the one sent to the College of Heralds in 1925. It is a great pity that the £75 was not spent on researching the history. If so, the Cross Street frontage was still extant and the carvings at least might have been preserved. They would have provided vital solid evidence.
In the dexter chief (top left hand) of the shield is a sun surmounted by a right hand holding a sealed book. The University of Paris (Sorbonne) has a similar charge in its arms. The Art Master, Henry Ogle, did two variations of the sun. He may have carried out some research and discovered exactly what was supposed to be displayed there. Look opposite p59, bottom right, top left roundel, use a magnifying glass and you can see the sun’s rays, quite different from the geometric zig-zag to be seen on p94 and in the photograph at the top of this item. The sun was a badge of Henry VIII.
We have not finished with the Coat of Arms. With the consent of the webmaster and any others who make the decisions, this material will remain on the site and further information and illustrations will be posted up from time to time. I will leave you with two questions - Where did the Cross Street carvings come from? How old are they?
Please can anyone help? Jim Heppell, p94, refers to the School flag. Does anyone have a photograph, drawing or detailed description of this?
Alick Hadwen
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