Coat of Arms of Montreal - History

History

The first coat of arms was displayed on white shield, which had a red saltire with four different charges between each of the arms, representative of the four main components of the population as viewed by Mayor Jacques Viger and the city council in 1833 when the coat of arms were designed and adopted. To the top, a rose was for the English heritage of the population, the dexter a thistle for the Scots, the sinister a sprig of clover for the Irish heritage of the city and to the bottom base a beaver for the French that originally settled the territory and traded in furs.

In 1938, the city council requested the coat of arms be updated to better reflect Montreal's population. The changes replaced the saltire with a cross, which then was reminiscent of both the St. George's Cross often associated with England and also with Christian missionary missions that could represent the principles of the French Catholics that originally founded the city. The beaver had become a symbol of the whole of Montreal and of the industriousness of the city by this time period, no longer merely representing the original French settlers, and was moved to ensign the shield. In the place of the beaver on the shield, a blue fleur de lys was added to symbolize the descendants of the original French settlers. The rose, thistle and clover remained. The shield was surrounded by a wreath made of sugar maple leaf to symbolize the amicable relations between the various elements of Montreal's population and an allusion to the maple as a national emblem of Canada. The scroll and motto below the shield read Concordia Salus, a Latin phrase translated as "Salvation through harmony."