A Whistler Coat of Arms
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The above coat of arms is displayed on the Whistler family tree that accompanies:
Rose Fuller Whistler, ‘The Annals of an English Family’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, Vol. 35, 1887, pp. 61–88 (Internet Archive
).
The workings of the rarefied world of heraldry and granting of arms is touched on at the website of the London College of Arms. It should be noted that coats of arms do not officially belong to a surname. Arms are granted to individuals of perceived merit by heralds or senior officers of arms. An individual may have a right to a coat of arms if they are descended in the male line from an armigerous person.
The Whistler family history published by the Revd Rose Fuller Whistler
is exceptional for its references to original documents
so that details can be checked and further research can proceed.
From his findings it is gleaned that
the heraldic visitation, a tour of inspection by officers of arms, of
Oxfordshire in 1574, confirmed a coat of arms for William Whistler as
recorded in the Harley Manuscript (Harl. MSS) No. 1556 in the collection
of the British Library, formerly part of the British Museum.
(An overview of the
Harley Manuscripts is at the British Library
website; a description of Harl. MSS No. 1556 is in the
Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum , Volume 2,
1808, page 124, Google eBook).
In heraldic language, the Whistler arms are ‘gules, five mascles in bend between two talbots passant argent ’ (Rose Fuller Whistler, ‘The Annals of an English Family’, p. 62). The terms can be explained:
| gules | red colour |
| mascle | a lozenge (diamond-shape) with a lozenge-shaped hole in the middle |
| bend | a band running diagonally from the top left to the bottom right |
| talbot | a hunting dog, now extinct |
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an animal walking towards the left, with the right forepaw raised and all others on the ground |
| argent | silver colour |
The Rose Fuller Whistler family tree records that William Whistler, the grantee of arms, died 5 January 1591 and was buried in the chancel of the church at Goring, Oxfordshire. William was one of five brothers who all married and had sons and grandsons to continue the Whistler name. Their father Ralph Whistler, of Fulscot, a hamlet in South Moreton, and lord of the manor of Gatehampton in Goring, Oxfordshire, had a will probated in the Archdeaconry Court of Berkshire in 1559.
John Whistler, a grandson of William Whistler of Goring, was buried at St Mary’s Church, Aldworth in Berkshire on 9 January 1669/70. A Whistler coat of arms was inscribed on his memorial gravestone set in the aisle of the church floor near the chancel.
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St Mary’s Church, Aldworth, Berkshire. Memorial with the
The inscription states:
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Photograph © Bill Nicholls taken 5 May 2009,
The Geograph Britain and Ireland project .
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Sketch of the Whistler memorial at St Mary’s Church, Aldworth,
from John Harold Baker, Whitchurch-on-Thames, the Story of a Thames-side Village, 1956, p. 19. |
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Guillim’s Display of Heraldry (1724 edition, p. 375) documents that the same coat of arms was borne by Humphrey Whistler, elected Mayor of Oxford in 1640 and 1658. Humphrey Whistler, like John Whistler of Aldworth, was a great-grandson of Ralph Whistler, lord of the manor of Gatehampton in Goring.
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Humphrey Whistler, Mayor of Oxford,
from John Guillim, A Display of Heraldry, 1724, p. 375 (Google eBook). |
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| Note: In heraldry, a passant animal walks with the right forepaw raised. In the above sketch, the talbot dog at the bottom left appears to have the left forepaw raised – possibly this was a careless mistake by the illustrator. |
An armorial memorial for another great-grandchild of the family patriarch Ralph Whistler is in St Swithun’s Church, Combe, now in West Berkshire, but previously part of Hampshire. The black marble gravestone, in the chancel floor of the church, commemorates Ann Whistler, who married her cousin Gabriel Whistler at a wedding in Combe in April 1658.
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St Swithun’s Church, Combe, Berkshire Memorial with the
The inscription states: Here lieth the body of Mrs | |
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Photograph at Find A Grave
contributed by David Wilson-Pinkney, 2015.
Another photograph of the memorial can be viewed at: The Geograph Britain and Ireland project .
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Gabriel Whistler (1630–1710) was a donor to King’s
College Chapel, Cambridge. He may be the person entered in a
list of ‘grantees of arms’ as:
Whistler, . . . , of co. Cambridge, . . ., by W. Segar.
[British Library] Harl. MS. 1105, folio 30.
("Grantees of arms named in docquets and patents to the end of the
seventeenth century: in the manuscripts preserved in the British museum,
the Bodleian Library, Oxford, . . ., and elsewhere",
edited by Joseph Foster and William Harry Rylands,
Internet Archive ).
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Revision date: 2016 |