Coat of arms of Warwick County Borough 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 Warwick 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 Warwick shield at the base. 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 Warwick Arms:
‘Official blazon
Arms : Sable a Walled Town with three Towers Argent issuing from each of the flanking Towers a demi Figure representing a Nightwatchman respectant winding a Horn Argent habited and capped Gules the central Tower charged with an Escutcheon Gules thereon a ragged Staff bendwise between in chief a Mullet of six points and an Increscent Silver.
Crest: On a Wreath of the Colours a demi Bear supporting a ragged Staff Sable.
Motto: 'ANTIQUUM OBTINENS' - Possessing antiquity or Holding fast to tradition.
Origin/meaning
The arms were officially granted on April 10, 1964.
The arms were granted in 1964 but are practically identical to the ancient seal of the Borough, which was recorded at the heraldic visitations to the county of Warwickshire in 1619 and 1682. This design appears to have been in use since the incorporation of Warwick in 1545.
The common seal showed a walled town with towered gateway, with two outer towers from which watchmen were winding their horns and two inner towers with spires. On the middle tower was an inescutcheon bearing a ragged staff, and at the top of the seal were a six pointed star and a crescent moon. When the arms were formally granted the field was fixed as sable, and the other charges as argent, save the watchmen's clothing and the inescutcheon which were made gules
A crest was added, the famous Warwickshire (as found in the Warwickshire County Council arms) emblem of the bear and ragged staff, here coloured black.
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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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