John Carpenter (town Clerk) - Coat of Arms

Coat of Arms

John Carpenter's arms appear to be of French or Norman heritage, "Paly of six, argent and gules, on a chevron azure, 3 cross crosslets or." This coat is often referred to as the Hereford Arms, named for the later ancestral home of the Carpenter family in Hereford. The crest, supporters and motto apparently changed several times over the centuries. A more recent motto is Per acuta belli.

The Hereford Arms were granted in 1719 to George, Lord Carpenter (1657–1732). He was a Lt. General and commander-in-chief of all the Crown's forces in Scotland when he was elevated to the peerage of Ireland, by patent dated 29 May 1719, as Baron Carpenter, of Killaghy, county Kilkenny. There is no direct male to male Carpenter descent connecting Lord Carpenter & Sir William Boyd Carpenter. The family connection is by marriage through the females in the family.

Sir William Boyd Carpenter (1841–1918), Bishop of Ripon in the Church of England, afterwards a Canon of Westminster and Chaplain to the reigning sovereign of England, wrote in a letter dated 7 August 1907 that his family bore the Hereford Arms. Sir Noel Paton, upon painting the Family Arms, informed him that the supporters were originally a round-handled sword, which in drawing over time became shortened, until nothing but the cross and globe were left beneath it. Those Hereford Arms were used by "John Carpenter, town clerk of London, who died 1442 A. D." His grandson John Boyd-Carpenter, Baron Boyd-Carpenter (1908–1998) continued the Arms into the new century by passing it down to his son, Thomas Boyd-Carpenter, who was himself knighted after a military career as a Lieutenant-General and in public service.

The Hereford Coat of Arms described above should not be confused with the Arms of Bishop Richard Carpenter (c1450s?–1503) presented in the "Visitations of the County of Oxford taken in 1566, 1574, and 1634, published in 1871, which describe the arms displayed in the buildings at the University in Oxford - "In the Lyberarye of Baliall College." - as recorded by the officials performing the visitations in those years. The Visitations describe the arms of Richard Carpenter (theologian) as: "Paly of nine Gu. and Az. on a chevron Arg. surmounted by a mitre Or, three cross crosslets or -- nine pales alternating red and blue, with a silver chevron bearing three gold cross-crosslets.