coats of arms in the halliday and holliday families – compiled by arthur radburn

English Halliday Coats of Arms

THE coats of arms borne by various Halliday families in England display three helmets on a shield framed in a border. In most cases, the shield is black, the helmets are silver, with or without gold trim, and the border is engrailed, i.e. scalloped inwards along the inner edge.

Origins

The origins of the coat of arms seem to be lost in the mists of time. They may have been in use in Lincolnshire in the first half of the 15th century, a time when it was still general practice for men simply to design and assume arms when they needed them. Formal grants by the kings of arms (senior royal heralds) began in the mid-15th century, and in 1484 the heralds were organised into a College of Arms, to serve as a central heraldry authority for the kingdom.
        The earliest record of the Halliday arms at the College appears to be in the early 16th century. Later, in 1605 and 1624, two individual Hallidays were formally granted coats of arms, and the grandson of one of them was officially recorded as bearing arms in 1664.

Symbolism

Does the design of the coat of arms have any particular meaning? Perhaps, or perhaps not. To quote Sir Anthony Wagner, arguably England's foremost heraldry scholar of the 20th century: "Contrary to popular belief, most coats of arms have no known meaning. Their primary purpose was and is to be distinctive, not significant ..."

As noted below in the Armorial, it's possible that the crest granted to Sir Leonard Holliday in 1605 and adapted for his cousin William nineteen years later, may have had specific meaning.

Armorial

Here are nine versions of the Halliday arms that I've located. Only the College of Arms can determine who may or may not bear any of these arms today. They're not freely available to anyone who happens to be named Halliday or Holliday.

Sources are indicated by initials - full details and, in some cases, links to online editions, follow under Sources.

The first four coats of arms appear to be authentic.

ROBERT HALLIDAY(?) — Sable, three helmets within a bordure engrailed Argent. They appear as a quartering in the arms of Sir Thomas Massingberd c1520, and as he was the grandson of Agnes, daughter and heiress of Robert Halliday of Burgh, Lincolnshire, I infer that they were probably Robert's arms. He would have lived in the first half of the 15th century.
        They also appear as a quartering in the arms of a knight named Stokes in the 1550s - was he too descended from a Halliday heraldic heiress?
        Listed by Edmondson, Berry and Robson as "Halyday or Holyday". Also listed by Robson as "Holyday (Archdeacon of Oxford ob 2 Oct 1661)" - he would have been "the learned" Barton Holyday (1593-1661).

Sir LEONARD HOLLIDAY (d 1612) — Sable, three helmets Argent garnished Or, within a bordure engrailed of the second. Crest: A demi-lion rampant gardant Or supporting an anchor proper. On 21 September 1605, Clarenceux King of Arms confirmed these as Sir Leonard's arms and granted him the crest. "Confirm" indicates that Sir Leonard was already using the arms, "grant" that the crest was new.
        The gold trim to the helmets is new - perhaps an allusion to Sir Leonard's wealth? Could the lion in the crest refer to Leonard, and the anchor to his involvement in maritime trade as a director of the Levant Company and the East India Company? We can but speculate.
        Listed by Edmondson as "Halliday (London and of Rowe in Middlesex)"; and by Berry as "Halliday (London, confirmed 21 Sept 1605)" and "Hollyday (Rowe, Midd, Lord Mayor of London, granted 21 September 1605)".

WILLIAM HOLLIDAY (c1565-1624) — Sable, three helmets Argent, a bordure of the same. Crest: A demi-lion rampant Or armed and langued Gules supporting an anchor proper. Granted to William Holliday, chairman of the East India Company, by Norroy King of Arms on 13 February 1624 (or 1623 by the alternative "legal calendar" also used at that time). The crest was evidently modeled on Sir Leonard's, with the lion facing a different direction.
        As William died two days after the arms were granted, and had no sons, his arms survived only as a quartering in the arms of his descendants through his elder daughter Anne, Lady Mildmay. His younger daughter, Margaret, Lady Hungerford, decorated her home, Farleigh Hungerford Castle, with the arms and those of her husband, and the crest was carved in marble at the foot of her tomb there.
        Listed by Berry and Robson as "Halyday (London)", but with an incorrect blazon.

JOHN HOLLIDAY — Sable, three helmets Argent garnished Or, a bordure engrailed Or. Crest: A demi-lion gardant Or resting his paws on an anchor all proper. Recorded by Lancaster Herald, during the 1663-64 Visitation of Middlesex, as the arms and crest of Sir Leonard's grandson, John Holliday of Bromley. Evidently, some time between 1605 and 1664, someone had changed the border from silver to gold.
        This appears to be the only time that a Halliday/Holliday's arms were recorded in a Visitation, which were a series of official inspections by the heralds, during the period 1530-1687, to record the arms in use in each county.
        Listed by Sir Bernard Burke as "Halliday (of Bromley)", but with an incorrect blazon.

The following arms are of uncertain origin.

"HOLLIDAY (LONDON 1605)" — Sable, three close helmets Argent garnished Or. Listed by Edmondson as "Hollyday (London)" and by both Berry and Robson as "Holliday (London 1605)". Berry and Robson also list them as "Holliday (London)" and give A demi-pegasus Argent winged Or for a crest. The date 1605 suggests that these are incorrect descriptions of Sir Leonard Holliday's arms and crest.

"HALYDAY (LONDON)" — Sable, three esquire's helmets Argent visors Or. Both Berry and Robson list these arms, and Berry cites a monument to William Halliday in St Lawrence Jewry church as the source. Clearly the description is wrong, as William's arms had a border and plain silver helmets. To judge from an 18th-century picture, the border may well have been omitted from the representation of the arms at the top of the monument. As the monument was destroyed in an air raid in 1940 (see photo in Pope-Hennessy's History Under Fire), it can no longer be examined.

"HOLLIDAY" — Azure, a fess between three helmets Or. Crest: A grenade fired proper. Listed by both Berry and Robson as "Holliday". Also listed in Robson, and by Papworth and Sir Bernard Burke, as "Coveley" but without a crest. There's obviously some confusion here.

"HALLIDAY OF WILTSHIRE AND SOMERSET" — Sable, three helmets Argent garnished Or, a bordure engrailed of the second. Crest: A demi-lion Or holding an anchor Azure. Motto: Quarta Saluti.
       According to John Burke, these are the arms and crest of the Hallidays of Wiltshire and Somerset, granted in the reign of King Edward IV (1461-83). They actually appear to be Sir Leonard Holliday's arms (1605), and William Holliday's crest (1624), with the anchor coloured blue. Burke also gives them as the arms of the Hallidays of Rodborough, but with the lion looking back over his shoulder, while his son, Sir Bernard Burke, says their arms and crest are the same as the Wiltshire/Somerset branches.
       John Burke doesn't name the supposed grantee, but as he identifies Edward IV's chief minstrel, Walter Halliday, as the founder of these branches of the family, some people infer that Walter was the grantee. There's also a more recent story, apparently American, that the king granted Walter the arms and a knighthood for valour at the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471.
        Is there any evidence to support any of this? According to the Bluemantle Pursuivant at the College of Arms in 1975, no such grant is on record at the College, and nor do the arms appear in any of the Visitation records. As the Visitations spanned a century and a half (1530-1687), how likely is it that five generations of Hallidays, in three counties, would have been overlooked? It seems, to me, far more likely that they weren't actually using arms at that time.
        John Burke appears to be the earliest printed reference to these arms. Might they perhaps have been assumed by the Halliday who married the Trowbridge heraldic heiress in the late 17th century (after the Visitations had ended), and later been retrospectively attributed to the 15th century?

"HOLLYDAY" — Sable, three close helmets Argent. Listed by Papworth. They appear to be an incorrect description of the original arms. They also closely resemble the Irish arms of Kennedy.

"HOLLIDAY (OF BROMLEY)" — Sable, three helmets Argent garnished Or, a bordure of the last. Listed by Sir Bernard Burke with the 1663 Visitation of Middlesex cited as the source. This is evidently an incorrect description of John Holliday's arms, with the word "engrailed" missing from the blazon, which therefore leaves the border plain-edged.

Sources

• BC = John Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland (1836)
• BEH = William Berry, Encyclopaedia Heraldica (1828)
• BGA* = Sir Bernard Burke, The General Armory (1884)
• BPR = Bluemantle Pursuivant's report on Halliday arms, printed in Alvis M. Holladay, The Holladay Family (1983)
• ECBH = Joseph Edmondson, A Complete Body of Heraldry (1780)
• HBSB = Lord Howard de Walden, Banners, Standards and Badges from a Tudor Manuscript in the College of Arms (1904)
• HHF = Alvis M. Holladay, The Holladay Family (1983)
• IA = Insignia Anglica armorial (1550s) (p 40)
• JGFH = Rev J.E. Jackson, A Guide to Farleigh Hungerford, Co Somerset (1879)
• NLP = Norroy King of Arms, Letters Patent granting arms and crest to William Holliday (1624) - printed copy in my possession
• POBA = John Papworth, An Ordinary of British Armorials (1874, reprinted 1961)
• RBH = Thomas Robson, The British Herald (1830) - unofficial
• SBEH = 'A Description of the Standards Borne in the Field by Peers and Knights in the Reign of King Henry the Eighth' (c1520), printed in Samuel Bentley, Excerpta Historica (1831) (p 315)
• VCM = Visitation of the County of Middlesex Begun in the Year 1663
• Anthony Wagner, Historic Heraldry of Britain (1939)

* Note: Although Burke was Ulster King of Arms, The General Armory was not an official publication.