Lerwick Town Hall (Heraldry)

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Lerwick Townhall Heraldry

On the ceiling of the main hall are 34 heraldic emblems. The shields were actually made when the Hall was built, but most of them were only put up on the ceiling in / or after 1909. From that we can only guess that the shields do not appear in the way of order they had been originally made for.

The actual arrangement of the CoA on the ceiling of the main hall since 1909 and still existing today. Question marks indicate a) unknown or b) in question where combined with a name. The explanations of the CoA as stated here follow the official Lerwick Town Hall Guide.

Out of this 34 shields 28 are exactly of the same size and shape. 6 shields are different in size and form, but can be set into 2 groups: 2 ecclestrical coats of arms and 4 others:

Size and forms of shields	Notes
	28 "standard shields", smallest, all of the same size and shape
	2 ecclestrial shields, different in size and shape and by far more elaborated than all the others
	4 shields, bigger in size and of different shape than the 28 "standard shields".

From the fact that one of the emblems has been identified as the arms of Pope Paul II (Barbo), who reigned from 1464 to 1471, it was thought that the heraldic scheme was intended to indicate some of the states and pricipalities of Europe in 1469, the year when the islands were pledged to the Scottish Crown. If that's right then the bishop is quite probably William Tulloch, Bishop of Orkney, although the Tulloch arms are normally shown without the three stars in the central bar.

From the technical layout we might conclude that some of the shields might to be grouped to six groups of five shields each, thus leaving four shields completely on their own. The best example of a group of five arms is that of the "Italian" shields, represented by Pope Paul II accompanied by the leading Italian cities of Venice, Milano, Florence and the forth shield of the same shape, which is not representing England as often described, but the Italian city of Genova.

If we accept the basical idea of arrangig the other shields into similar groups we don't have to look just for "some states and principalities in Europe" but for "leading states and their towns, families or dominions linked with the Shetland history". From the whole set of shields and in addition to the Italian / Papal Group the five remaining clusters may be:

The Scandinavian Kingdoms

represented by Norway, Danmark, Sweden and ancient Vandelia with an artist's impression in the centre.

The territorries of the Scandinavian Kingdoms

represented by Stormarn, Gotland, the Isle of Man and Iceland with Lerwick in the centre.

The Kingdom of Scotland

represented by Scottish nobility.

The Kingdom of England

represented by the forebaerers of the ruling Royal family and other English nobility.

The Bishopric of Orkney

represented by landed gentry of Orkney and Shetland.

For further information see the table below.

There is the problem that for some of the shields neither a family nor a region may be applicable. Thus 12 shields out of the 34 were decribed as "unknown"; some of them can probably be answered, some remain as unknown.

Another reason for some confusion still remains in the fact that some emblems were supposed to appear more than once. This applys to the following 4 shields:

The first pair is quite easily to be distinguished by the shape and the drawing, although the same names of north Italian cities are given for both, but the smaller one (a "standard shield", N°. 30) is probably representing England, the bigger one (N°. 8) belongs into the "Italian group" representing the City of Genova (and not the City of Milan, which is represented by the arms of the Visconty family).
The second pair looks like mirror images at a first glance but they show different colors and different shapes of the lozenges. So, one of these shields (N°. 2) comes out as "Bavaria", left open whether representing the House of Welfen and then via the House of Hanover to be linked with the set of arms representing the Kingdom of England of the following centuries or representing the House of Wittelsbach and then to be linked with the northern Kingdoms of Danmark, Norway and Sweden what would be more fitting to the time in discussion. Nevertheless, N°. 23 is unknown so far.

The most confusing crest is a remaining "standard shield", the only one, which is quartered (N°. 29). The official description says, it might have Switzerland and Scotland as chiefs with Bavaria and Vandelia at the base. If "Scotland" is right it might be an artist's impression to indicate that this part of Scotland (Shetland) is still a part of the Nordic (Scandinavian) Kingdom.

N°.	Coat of Arms	described as	probably is	remarks
1		Greece	Scotland	-
2		Bavaria	Bavaria	… or the House of Wittelsbach or the House of Hanover; both are connected with the blue and white Bavarian lozenges. As N°. 31 a referrence to the actually reigning Royal House of Britain.
3		Iceland	Iceland	-
4		unknown	unknown	-
5		See of London	See of London	-
6		Norway	Norway	ancient
7		Venice	Venice	-
8		Milan? Padua? Genoa?	Genoa	Milan is already represented by the Visconti arms; from the remaining two, only the red cross of Genoa has a black borderline.
9		Pope Paul II	Pope Paul II	-
10		Florence	Florence	-
11		Milan	Milan	Represented by the arms of the Visconti family.
12		unknown	unknown	-
13		Lerwick	Lerwick	-
14		Sinclair	Sinclair	Earls of Orkney
15		unknown	Bishop of Orkney (William Tulloch ?)	A similar shield without the 3 stars on the bar is shown over the door of the south transept of Kirkwall Cathedral.
16		unknown	Boyd?	Lord Robert Boyd (+ c. 1470) arranged the marriage between James III and Margaret, daughter of Christian I. The drawing of the arm itself is wrong and against the "rule of tincture": Metal should not be put on metal, nor colour on colour - but the bar checkered shows or (gold) on silver (white). The Boyd's CoA shows a bar checkered silver (white) and gules (red).
17		Banska Bystrica (Chief city of central Slovakia)	unknown	There is no reason for the claim of being Banska Bystrica. The same arms on the Rose Window of Lerwick Townhall claim to be "Oldenburg". That would fit to the Danish context but it is defenitely wrong, too: Oldenburg has only 2 red bars on a shield or. So it is either mistaken, an artist's impression or has to be reinterpreted. The Danish King Christian was the first representative of the House of Oldenburg on the Danish throne.
18		unknown	unknown	-
19		unknown	unknown	-
20		Stewart	Stewart	-
21		Stormark	Stormarn	At the time in question in parts belonging to Danmark, today part of Slesvig-Holsatia, Germany. Ahrentsburg, a Danish fishing station on Bressay, is contemporary link between Stormarn and Shetland.
22		unknown	a Murray?	A similar CoA for a Pat Murray is in Kirkwall Cathedral; the only difference: the crescent is placed on the top of and within the chevronel.
23		Bavaria	unknown	Not matching Bavaria in size, order and color of the lonzenges.
24		Isle of Man	Isle of Man	-
25		Vandelia	Vandelia ?	Royaume des Vandales, the mysterious ancient kingdom from which the Swedish kings claimed their descendence and represented in the Royal Arms of Sweden since King Christopher (House of Wittelsbach). The interpretation as Vandelia ? might be correct although normally the shield of Vandelia should be gules as in (4) of N°. 29.
26		unknown	Danmark	Obviously representing the Arms of Danmark; similar Danish arms (with the middle vertical row of hearts missing) appear in various CoA in German regions which were once part of Danmark.
27		Sweden	Sweden	The "modern" Swedish arms.
28		unknown	Gotland	Agnus dei for Gotland
29		Switzerland? Scotland? Bavaria? Vandelia?	unknown	Most probably an artist impression. Quarter (1) "Switzerland" might be the Danebrog representing Danmark, (3) Bavaria might be Wittelsbach and (4) Vandelia (?) might be the Swedish ancient Ventland (Royaume des Vandales). Then we would have 3 out of 5 major elements of the Royal arms of King Christopher of Danmark, Norway and Sweden and some of his successors with the Danish lions and the Norwegian CoA missing. (4) A lion rampant gules on a shield or is still a remaining problem.
30		Milan? Padua? Genoa?	England	-
31		Saxonia	Saxonia	As N°. 2 a referrence to the actually reigning Royal House of Britain.
32		unknown	Strathearn?	ancient, as used for Malise, Earl of Strathearne, signator of the Declaration of Arbroath. Representing Scottish nobility.
33		unknown	Shetland landed gentry	Known from an amorial panel surviving in Shetland (Scalloway Ha ?).
34		unknown	Bothwell?	The Bothwell family owned land in the Earldom of Orkney and was related to the See of Orkney.

The following graph shows an alternative arrangement of the shields. There are still some problems remaining but as a whole this kind of arrangement might be closer to the original intentions.