AGM - Perth

The Society's AGM was held today in Perth on a glorious day. The event was great fun, beginning with a scholarly lecture by Dr David Bertie and concluding with a brilliant account of Actuaries and Heraldry by Alan Watson. The highlight of the formal AGM proceedings was the creation of two new Fellows of the Society: Eilean Malden and John Malden who will receive their insignia at a later date.

Members will be sorry to hear of the death, on Sunday night, of JOHN GEORGE, quondam Kintyre Pursuivant and later Linlithgow Pursuivant Extraordinary. RIP.

Peter Esslemont RIP

We are sorry to record the death of Peter Esslemont FHS, a long-standing member of the Society. His grant of arms was recorded at the Lyon Court in 1979 and contains a pun on his name: "Or, on a rocky mount with verdure its base in the form of an "S" the convex part to the Dexter and the concave part to the sinister all proper" The boars' heads in chief are a reference to the Gordons of Aberdeenshire of which the Esslemonts were a sept.

Archbishop William Aquin Carew RIP

Archbishop William Aquin Carew, former Nuncio to Japan, died on May 8th in Canada. Arms by Taisei André Miyagawa

Duke of Argyll signs petition to lift Jacobite attainders

HERE is the article in today's "Scotland on Sunday" referred to below.

Jacobite Forfeitures

If you are not a regular subscriber to that recondite journal "Scotland of Sunday", be sure to secure a copy this weekend (Sunday 13th May) when the ever-green Peter Drummond-Murray of Mastrick, quondam Slains Pursuivant to the Earl of Errol, is interviewed on the subject of the Jacobite forfeitures.

More heraldic instruments ...

Royal timpani in Versailles.

Another heraldic instrument

Here is a Hunting Trumpet in F in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, sneakily snapped when the attendant's back was turned. It was made in Belgium in the second half of the 19th century.

New Macer for the Lyon Court

The Lord Lyon has appointed Mr Roderick Macpherson, Messenger-at-Arms, of Rutherford and Macpherson, Messengers-at-Arms, Glasgow, as his Macer. It is thought that this is the first time a macer has been appointed from the West of Scotland. Mr Macpherson is a doughty defender of the traditional rights and privileges of the Messengers-at-arms as can be read here.