Arms, Crest and Motto
The Arms of the Company were designed by the late Sir Colin Cole, Garter King of Arms, and presented by him at the Installation ceremony of Alderman Sir Peter Gadsden, the Guild's new Master, in 1987. These Arms depict five purses symbolising trade between the five continents, with the sword and wheel of St Katherine together with the water and quayside of the dock, as a reminder of the company's foundation. The Arms are surmounted by a carbocle containing a medieval merchant's cap and the supporters are a dolphin borrowed from the Company of Watermen and Lightermen, who originally gave the company sanctuary in the City of London, and the sea dragon of the City as a mark of respect for its commands.
The Master's Badge of office displays the Company's coat of arms mounted on a piece of rock crystal, donated by the World Trade Centre of Rio de Janeiro, carved with an outline of five continents.
The motif on the Company tie derives from the Company's crest: it comprises the helm, torse and mantelling surmounted by the wheel of St Katherine upon which is a medieval merchant's cap.
The Company's motto is "Commerce and honest friendship with all", a quote from Thomas Jefferson's inaugural Presidential speech.
Read more about this topic: Worshipful Company Of World Traders
Famous quotes containing the words crest and/or motto:
“What shall he have that killed the deer?
His leather skin and horns to wear.
Then sing him home.
Take thou no scorn to wear the horn,
It was a crest ere thou wast born;
Thy father’s father wore it,
And thy father bore it.
The horn, the horn, the lusty horn
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Ex oriente lux may still be the motto of scholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East all the light which it is destined to receive thence.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)