Coat of Arms
The school's coat of arms was granted in 1949 by the College of Arms, the full blazon being:
Ermine, a lozenge argent charged with three blackbirds rising proper. On a chief gules, an open book also proper, garnished or, between two ducal coronets of the last. And for the crest, on a wreath argent and gules, a squirrel sejant gules holding between the paws a ducal coronet or. Mantling, argent and gules. Motto "Lauda Finem".
These arms incorporate those of the school's founder: the Mellers' family arms were three blackbirds (or merles – an example of canting arms) on a white field; Dame Agnes, being a woman, would have displayed these on a lozenge rather than a shield. In 2007 the school introduced a new 'logo' for more general use, a modified version of the shield which omits the lozenge and the ermine field. Whilst this breaches laws of English heraldry, action is rarely taken in such matters.
Read more about this topic: Nottingham High School
Famous quotes containing the words coat and/or arms:
“I expect a time when, or rather an integrity by which, a man will get his coat as honestly and as perfectly fitting as a tree its bark. Now our garments are typical of our conformity to the ways of the world, i.e., of the devil, and to some extent react on us and poison us, like that shirt which Hercules put on.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Know that, on the right hand of the Indies, there is an island called California, very near to the Terrestrial Paradise, which was peopled with black women.... Their arms were all of gold.”
—For the State of California, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)