Coat of arms of Birmingham City Council which were formerly on the facade of Mason Science College, the forerunner of the University of Birmingham which received its Royal Charter in 1900.
The new University gradually transferred away from Edmund Street to the Edgbaston campus over next 60 years. The former main library and the Arts Faculty buildings being built in the late 1950's completing the transfer process.
The Birmingham shield is one of four shields now displayed outside the entrance to the Law building at the University. The shields form a column with the Birmingham shield the second to last. Below the top shield is below a tablet inscribed as follows:
'These shields adorned Sir Josiah
Mason’s Science College, which was
erected in Edmund Street in 1880.
Became part of the University of
Birmingham from 1900 to 1961 and
was demolished in 1964 to make way
for the City of Birmingham Library.'
The Birmingham Arms:
‘Official blazon
Quarterly first and fourth Azure a Bend of five Lozenges Or second and third per pale indented of the last and Gules over all a fesse Ermine thereon a mural crown of the second.
Crest : On a Wreath of the colours, A mural crown, issuant therefrom a dexter arm embowed, the hand holding a hammer, all proper.
Supporters : On the dexter side a man habited as a smith (representing Industry) holding in the dexter hand a hammer resting on an anvil proper; and on the sinister side a female figure (representing Art) proper, vested argent, wreathed around the temples with laurel vert, tied by a riband gules, holding in the dexter hand resting on the shield a book proper also gules and in the sinister a painter's palette Or with two brushes proper.
Motto: 'FORWARD'
Origin/meaning
The arms were officially granted on April 3, 1889, the supporters one day later on April 4. The arms were again granted on August 31, 1936.
The arms in the quarters of the shield are two distinct coats used by the de Bermingham family, who held the manor in the 13th century (and perhaps from the time of the Conquest) until 1527, when Edward de Birmingham was deprived of his property by John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, by means of a false charge of riot. The bendwise lozenges appear on the shield of an effigy in the church of St. Martins-in-the-Bull Ring, believed to be William de Bermingham. Later members of the family seemed to have quartered the two coats in one shield, but with the quarters reversed. This order of the coats was used by the City for difference.
The mural crown, arm and hammer refer to civic government and industry.
'The figures represent art and industry. The cupel refers to the jewellery quarter and the anvil refers to the tradition of heavy industry.’
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'The cupel referred to above is a refractory pot in which gold or silver is refined and is held in the sinister hand of the smith supporter.' (
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More information on the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter can be found at the following link: (
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As a result of the heavy industry and engineering in the city,‘Birmingham was once known as the ‘first manufacturing town in the world’ and was hailed as the ‘City of a Thousand Trades’ after it achieved city status in 1889, thanks to the number of businesses that chose to base themselves in the area, largely due to its vast water network.’ (
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‘The University of Birmingham, founded in 1900 by Joseph Chamberlain, plays a prominent role in higher education across the world. In its seedling form, however, the University grew out of the vision and enterprise of Sir Josiah Mason, who endowed and supervised the construction of his Science College in Edmund Street, Birmingham, decades earlier. Josiah Mason came from modest beginnings, which influenced his desire to create a college ‘easily available to persons of all classes, even the humblest.’ Making his fortune as a manufacturer of pen-nibs, he was an enthusiastic philanthropist, and founded an orphanage in Erdington. He was knighted in 1872. In 1880, Sir Josiah Mason’s Science College took its first students. The façade was decorated with Mason’s mermaid crest and the carved shields which are installed here. They represent the heraldic shields of the region, Kidderminster, Worcester, Birmingham and Warwickshire.’ (
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