[Reference-numbers are to my
"London" volume, except for one in the Postscript.]
Burke gives no arms for either
"Toulmin of Hackney" or "Toulmin of
Childwickbury",
but Burke's "General Armory" gives under Toulmin (no further
specification):
(a) Ar. a chev. ermines betw. 3 ducal
coronets sa., crest a dexter arm embowed in
armour
holding a sabre all ppr.
(b) Gu. on a chief ar. 3 martlets sa., crest
a garb in fess ppr.
The arms (a), with some variation in the
crest, are associated with many members
of the
families of both Abraham Toulmin (*132) and Joshua Toulmin (*1331). All
representations
that I know have the chevron as described (see note below), ie
"ours"
as noted by Flood (p.1) who sent William Toulmin "a sheet of notepaper
with
Stewart's
branch's coat of arms and crest...you will see the shield is just a little
different
shape from ours, also I think there are six ermines and they look all
black
(ours, you know are white on a chevron sable)...It has the old Toulmin motto
and the
crest is slightly different" (more of the motto later). Stewart =
**132163441:
presumably the arms applied at least to all descendants of the Rev.
Thomas
Toulmin (**1321); this is the only record I know of arms with the chevron
"ermine"
not "ermines". The sheet has not been found: William Toulmin sent me
a wax
seal
with Stewart's arms on, but it is impossible to make out any details.
Cussans shows this coat, in the
"ermines" form, for the Childwickbury family, and
BC-T
(*13215A282) has a set of plates with the crest (arm embowed), confirmed by
Minton
Museum (7 Dec 1993) as produced 1830-40: presumably made for H.H.Toulmin
(*132156)
and passed on via *1321562D & *13215A2C.
The arms appear in a memorial
window
to Henry J. Toulmin (*1321562) and his wife and sons in St Albans Abbey
(photo
BC-T), impaled with Wroughton (arg. a chevron couped gu. bet. 3 boars' heads
couped
sa. (Burke) - but the chevron is not couped).
The motto here (rather oddly
at
first sight) is "Inimica tyrannis"; the same (per Weston) on a
"card case
belonging
to A.F.H.B.Toulmin" (apparently a conflation of A.H. (*1321564) & F.B.
(*1321563)).
JMH has a plate with the coat as described
but motto "Inimicus tyrannis", and
reports
that it was earlier "Manus haec inimicus tyrannis", but Joshua
Toulmin chose
to omit
the initial words. However, "Manus
haec inimica tyrannis" was the motto of
both
Baron Riversdale [family name Tonson] and Earl Carysfort [Proby] (Fairbairn's
Crests
1988, per JMH: both were Irish titles now extinct; see Burke s.v. Proby for
the
latter). "Manus" being
feminine, "inimicus" implies substantive "an enemy",
while
"inimica" is merely the adjective "hostile"; but it seems
odd to retain the
feminine
when "manus" is omitted.
PT (2.11.94) reports "The arms
described under (a) are those traditionally in use
by the
Alabama (and Pennsylvania) Toulmins", but with motto "Deus robur
meum" (a
photo
he sent confirms the "ermines" form.) His grandfather and great-uncle
(*13311C2,3)
used these on plates, stationery, etc.
He also has a gold & carnelian
signet
given by the widow of Henry Wroughton Toulmin (*13215624) to Marian (Toulmin)
Townsend
(*13311C31), which has the coat with motto "Inimica tyrannis", but a
dagger
in
place of the sabre in the crest.
A few technical notes, from "A Grammar
of English Heraldry" (Hope rev. Wagner,
Cambridge,
1953): "The shape of the shield ... is a matter of indifference"
(p.15).
I think
the number of "tails" in an ermined pattern is also irrelevant; but
the
distinction
between the original "ermine" of black tails on white and the
reverse,
"ermines"
according to SOED and PT, but described as "sable ermined silver" and
as
invented
in the 15th century in the Grammar (p.8), is real. This may represent a
technical
"difference": "The Great Roll also contains a large number of
arms of
kinsmen
of various degrees differenced by such methods as reversal of
tinctures..."
(p.60);
eg "Henry Mortimer changes the blue of the original arms to red"
(p.21).
Evelyn
Flood (Flood, p.2) seems to have assumed some such change when she commented
to
William Toulmin "The coat of arms [ie Stewart's] is your branch",
apparently
identifying
the Preston Toulmins with Stewart's branch - presumably merely because
his
ancestor, the Rev. Thomas, was a vicar in Westmoreland and said by Stewart to
have
originated from Bolton-le-Sands. But
the probable connection of the Preston
Toulmins
with Bolton was not then known.
The coat (b) is obviously completely
different, and I've not come across it in
connection
with any Toulmins I know of. WillT has
a note of it (source not
indicated)
with the addition in brackets "a martlet argent" and "difference
of the
4th
son". PT reports that his father
"once fell for one of those commercial
solicitations
and ordered a drawing supposed to be of the Toulmin family arms",
receiving,
as PT recalls, a drawing of (b) - probably taken from the "General
Armory".
An enquiry from BC-T (Coll.Arms) elicited
the information that the arms (a) "have
never
been the subject of official registration as such and the Coat would appear to
be of a
composite nature and of no authority", and found "only one entry in
the name
of
Toulmin (or likely variant thereof)", yet a third coat:
(c) Per fess vert and erminois a fess
invected counterchanged in chief three
annulets
or. ["Erminois" = "gold ermined sable" of Grammar,
according to SOED.]
This was granted to George Bainbridge of
Carlebury, Durham for his wife Anne, nee
Toulmin,
daughter and coheir of Edmund Toulmin of Ingleton, Yorks. Edmund can be
identified
as a descendant of a Bolton-le-Sands family, but has not been placed in
my main
catalogue: see App.B, 5b (Ingleton).
WillT quotes Harleian Soc., vol. XXII,
p.455, as mentioning an "escutcheon of
pretence" (1804) for Toulmin, wife of
Bainbridge
of Carleybury.
A fourth coat noted by WillT, apparently
from a French source, not specified:
(d) Toulmen - Bret. D'arg a un croiss. de gu. un chef d'azur, ch. de trois macles
d'or.
["Macle" = "mascle", or "lozenge voided", in
English heraldry, ie a hollow
diamond.]
Yet another, also without provenance,
appears on a plaque (of which I have a
photograph)
"brought by my grandfather [***3111367153] from England" (per Diane
Toulmin,
***311136715333). This includes a
complex "scutcheon of pretence", which
cannot
be described certainly from the photgraph; the main coat appears to be
(e) Ermine a bend cotised and a cross moline
gules and an anchor gold and on the
bend 3
[?] horseshoes gold; crest an ostrich [emu?] proper with a crosslet fitchy
silver
in its beak; motto "Non quis sed quid".
The number of horseshoes is uncertain
because of the scutcheon: only 2 are shown.
The
arms may be associated with Ferris or Milward (spouses of ***311136715,
***31113671),
though the plaque is labelled "Toulmin": note that several branches
of
the
Milward family do have arms with a cross moline (or "millrind"),
punning on the
name.
It is curious that all five coats are
charged with 3 of something (coronets,
martlets,
annulets, mascles, horseshoes); but of course this is a convenient number.
POSTSCRIPT. After the above note was compiled, an official coat of arms was
granted
to John Kelvin Toulmin (North*623511), on 1 Aug 1996. I have not seen the
formal
description, but a photograph (per BC-T) shows
(f) Argent two gemell-bars gules and three
red roses crowned sable; crest a lamb
running;
motto "Deus robur meum".
A note accompanying the photograph indicates
that the crowns are taken from the
arms
(a) above, and the motto is one of those that has accompanied them [as noted
above,
that used by a US family]. The roses
represent Lancashire and Winchester
[his
school], the lamb Preston and the Middle Temple; the bars signify his Austrian
decoration
and his presidency of the Bars of Europe.
It is all surrounded [in lieu
of
supporters] by the motto of the order
of St Michael & St George ["Auspicium
melioris
aevi": his appointment as CMG prompted him to obtain the arms].