Heraldic Study Day 2.0

L-R: David Birtwistle, Matthew Douglas, and Stephen Lautens

This year, once again, our  Branch picked a beautiful day to hold the 2nd Annual Heraldic Studies Day, which was hosted at Trinity College in Toronto. It was great to see more members and guests out to this education day and it shows that this annual event is gaining interest.

The day started out with Dr. Jonathan Lofft, providing a lecture on “Three Canadian Seals Not by the Wyons; Decolonising Sir Conrad Swan’s Sigillography”. This was followed by Mr. Derwin Mak, speaking on “The Coat of Arms of the Korean Empire from 1901-1903”. After everyone returned from lunch in the city we had the opportunity to hear from Prof. D’Arcy Boulton, UE, FRHSC, AIH who provided a very visually pleasing presentation on “Combining Personal Arms in England before 1625”. Finishing off our academic day together Reverend Canon David Bowyer, FRHSC provided a very interesting lecture on “Sacred Brollies & Holy Bumbershoots”

What a day was had by all and if you had to miss this year’s Heraldic Studies Day hopefully you will be able to join us next year for what we can only assume will be another very successful day of heraldic learning.

In normal practise for this day together, the Toronto Branch conducted its Annual General Meeting following the closing of the Study Day. We had the opportunity to elect Mr. Sasa Kahrimanovic from Cambridge to the position of Branch Secretary and heard the reports from the past year from the various board members.

If this was not enough to consider it a full day, we had one final event to attend to. That being the Branch dinner, which we were honoured to have as our guest of honour The Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell, OC, OOnt, 29th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.  During her speech, she discussed her own Grant of Arms that was in the process of being granted. She remarked that during the process she had learned much about Heraldry. 

L-R: Edward McNabb, Donald Williamson, Moira Scott, and Silvio de Silva