Coat of Arms

Maitland’s History of England of 1739 and a Company minute book of 1775 both show very similar coats of arms for the Company. The crest was not recorded until 1870, where it can be found in Edmondson’s Complete Body of Heraldry; however, it was only authorised in 1988 by Master Patrick Bird. Letters Patent were issued in 1991 thus regularising the position in which a very similar but unheraldic coat of arms had been used for over 200 years. The main differences are the addition of a helmet, the mantling, and the shape of the shield.

The blazon is as follows: “Or a fan displayed with a mount of various devices and colours the sticks glues on a chief per pale Gules and Azure dexter a shaving iron over a bundle of fan sticks tied together Or and sinister a framed saw in pale gold and for the crest upon a Helm with a wreath Or and Gules a dexter hand couped below the wrist proper holding a fan displayed Or”

Interestingly the Company’s coat of arms incorporates the tools of a stick maker, not a fan maker: shaving iron for planning rough sticks, a bundle of these sticks, and a framed saw, which helped to shape the sticks and cut designs in them.