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

Scottish Halliday Coats of Arms

THE coats of arms borne by Hallidays in Scotland depict an upright sword rising out of a crescent, with the Scottish flag in the upper corner. The crest is usually a boar's head, and the motto is usually 'Virtute Parta'.

Origins

The arms are known to have existed in the 17th century. Stodart suggests that they were adopted by Sir John Halliday of Tulliebole after 1608 - evidently they were in existence by the 1620s. In 1592, the Scottish parliament had passed an act to restrict the use of coats of arms to noblemen, barons, and gentlemen, but clearly Sir John, as a knight and a landowner, would have qualified.

Symbolism

There's a story, as there is about many coats of arms which depict crescents, that the arms commemorate an ancestor's service in a Crusade. Perhaps they do - however, crescents are fairly common as charges in Scottish heraldry. So are boars' heads. The inclusion of the Scottish flag is, however, unusual.

Armorial

An Act of Parliament, passed in 1672, made it compulsory for people to matriculate (register) their coats of arms at the Lyon Office. Arms are differenced to identify individual members within each family, and there are therefore several different versions of the Halliday arms.

Only the Lord Lyon King of Arms can determine who may or may not bear any of these coats of 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.

Sir JOHN HALLIDAY(?) (d 1619) — On a chevron between three cinquefoils, a crescent.
        According to Stodart, Sir John, owner of Tulliebole Castle in Fifeshire, bore these arms before 1608, but he doesn't give the tinctures (colours) of the arms. Several arms of this pattern, in various colour combinations, are listed in reference books, but none under Halliday

HALLIDAY OF TULLIEBOLE — Argent, a sword paleways the pommel within a crescent in base all Gules, and on a canton Azure a saltire Argent. Crest: A boar's head couped Argent armed Or. Motto: Virtute Parta.
        Hallidays owned Tulliebole Castle in Fifeshire from the late 16th century to the 1740s. Nisbet, citing Pont's Alphabetical Collection (c1620) as source, gives these as the arms, crest and motto of "Halliday of Tillybole". Stodart suggests that they date from after 1608, and quotes 17th-century heralds Stacie and Porteous as saying that the canton of the Scottish flag was "a reward" for the Tulliebole family. John Halliday has suggested that the canton may have alluded to the Halliday family's patronage of the St Andrew's Chapel in St Michael's Church in Dumfries.
        Listed by Berry as "Hallyday (Tillybole, North Britain)".
       On 21 July 1858, the Ulster King of Arms (Ireland's heraldry authority) confirmed these arms to Alexander Henry Haliday (with one 'l') of Carmoney and other descendants of his father William Haliday. This appears to have been the entomologist Alexander Haliday (1806-70).

ROBERT HALLIDAY — Argent, a sword erect in pale proper hilted and pommeled Or the pommel within a crescent in base Gules, on a dexter canton Azure a saltire of the first. Crest: A boar's head couped Argent armed Or. Motto: Virtute Parta.
        Robert Douglas Halliday of Coldbrook, Isle of St Croix, representative of Tulliebole, matriculated these arms, crest, and motto at the Lyon Office on 28 March 1775. They were differenced (personalised) for him by changing the colour of the sword from red to "proper", i.e. natural colours.

JOHN DELAP HALLIDAY — Argent a sword erected in pale proper hilted and pommeled Or the last within a crescent in base Gules, a chief Ermine, and a dexter canton Azure charged with a saltire of the field. Crest: A dexter arm armed, couped below the shoulder proper flexed at the elbow grasping a dagger both proper the hilt and pommel Or and distilling drops of blood from the point. Motto: Merito.
        John Delap Halliday of Castledykes matriculated these arms, crest, and motto, at the Lyon Office on 8 May 1779. The crest and motto appear to have been derived from the Delap family arms.
        This seems to have been Major John Delap Halliday (1749-94), later of The Leasowes, Shropshire, who married Lady Jane Tollemache, and whose son Admiral John Richard Delap Halliday, later adopted the arms and name of Tollemache. Dr William D. Holliday shows John's bookplate, which depicts these arms quartered with other arms (Delap?), and impaling the Tollemache arms, with the boar's head crest and the motto "Virtute Parta".
        Listed by Robson as "Halliday (Leasowes, Salop; and Scotland)" and by Sir Bernard Burke as "Halliday of Castledykes", with an incorrect crest.

Dame HENRIETTA HALLIDAY — Argent, a sword erected in pale proper hilted and pommeled Or the last within a crescent in base Gules, on a dexter canton Azure a saltire of the field charged with a star Gules. Crest: A boar's head couped proper. Motto: Virtute Parta.
        Dame Henrietta Halliday matriculated these arms, crest, and motto at the Lyon Office on 3 February 1785. I've not found out who she was. Today "dame" is the title used by a lady who has been knighted, but in the 18th century it seems to have been used as a form of address for ladies of high social status.

Sir ANDREW HALLIDAY (1781-1839) — Ermine, a sword in pale point upwards proper pommel and hilt in Gold between a mural crown in chief Or, a Crescent in base Gules, and two wreaths of laurel in fess Vert tied Gules; a canton Azure thereon a saltire Argent. Crest: A boar's head couped Argent surmounting a sword and a staff entwined by a serpent in saltire all proper.
        According to the Harleian Society's Grantees of Arms 1687-1898, Sir Andrew Halliday was granted arms by the College of Arms in England in the 1820s. John Burke depicts them, strangely quartered with the arms of Sir Leonard Holliday, and with an incorrect crest. Sir Bernard Burke also refers to the arms. Neither gives the tinctures.
        Sir Andrew was a distinguished surgeon who served in the Napoleonic War, which would no doubt explain the military symbols (the laurel wreaths, the mural crown, and the sword in the crest) and the medical symbol (the staff entwined of a serpent).

HALLIDAY OF CHICKLADE — Argent, a sword erect proper between three crescents Gules, on a canton Azure a saltire couped of the field. Crest: A boar's head couped Argent semé of crescents Gules armed Or. Motto: Virtute Parta.
        Burke's Landed Gentry gives these as the arms of the Hallidays of Chicklade in Wiltshire. According to the pedigree, a Halliday from Dumfries acquired the manor of Chicklade in Wiltshire, England, in the 19th century.

WILLIAM HOLLIDAY OF COREHEAD TOWER (b 1949) — Argent, a sword erect in pale proper hilted and pommelled Or the pommel within a crescent in base Gules; a chief invected Gules charged with a martlet Or, in a canton Azure a saltire of the field. Crest: A boar's head couped Or charged with a martlet Gules. Motto: Virtute Parta.
        Dr William David Holliday of Dallas, Texas USA, and of Corehead Tower in Dumfries, matriculated these arms, crest and motto at the Lyon Office on 16 November 2006.

HALLIDAY (CANONBIE) — A sword erect and in chief three crescents.
        According to Stodart, "in the churchyard of Canonbie there is a Halliday coat cut in stone – a sword erect and in chief three crescents." No further details are given. Neither Balfour Paul nor Gayre mentions these arms, but perhaps they predate the opening, in 1672, of the official Lyon Register on which their books were based.

HALLIDAY (ATHERSTONE HOUSE) — Or(?), a sword paleways the pommel within a crescent in base all Gules.
        These arms, labeled simply "Halliday", are displayed at Sir Walter Scott's former home, Atherstone House, Melrose, Roxburghshire. Their origin is obscure, and the accuracy is open to question: the field appears to be gold (unless it's silver paint that has discoloured), and there is no canton. The connection may have been through Sir Andrew Halliday, who was a friend of Sir Walter Scott.

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)
• BLG = Peter Townend (Ed), Burke's Landed Gentry (1969)
• BPO = Sir James Balfour Paul, An Ordinary of Scottish Arms (1893) - based on the official Lyon Register
• GRSA = Robert Gayre of Gayre & Nigg, Roll of Scottish Arms (1964-69) - based on the official Lyon Register
• HBHG = William D. Holliday, A Brief History and Genealogy of the Holliday Family (1993/2004)
• HGA = Harleian Society, Grantees of Arms 1687-1898 (reference kindly provided by Stephen Plowman, 2008)
• HSO = Slains Online website
• JH = John Halliday (e-mail communications 2009, including blazon of Sir Andrew's arms and photo of the arms at Atherstone House)
• NLI = National Library of Ireland
• NSH = Alexander Nisbet, A System of Heraldry (1722)
• RBH = Thomas Robson, The British Herald (1830)
• SSA = Robert Stodart, Scottish Arms (1882)

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