Coat of arms of Worcester 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 Worcester 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 Worcester shield the second from the top 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 Worcester Arms:
A quarterly sable and gules over all a castle triple towered argent on a canton of the last a fess between three pears sable.
This is a black and red shield divided into quarters with a silver coloured three turreted castle in the upper right-hand quarter with a horizontal stripe across the middle of the shield between three black pears.
‘However until the beginning of the 17th Century the Coat of Arms displayed the castle alone but in 1634 the 'castle' coat was registered along with the coat bearing the black pears and were described as the ancient and modern arms of the City of Worcester.
Tradition has it that it was during the visit of Queen Elizabeth I to Worcester in 1575 that Worcester acquired its second coat of arms featuring the black pears. It is said that during her procession through the streets of Worcester the Queen saw a pear tree which had been planted in the Foregate in her honour. She was so pleased at the appropriateness of the tree growing right in the heart of a fruit growing region, that she bade the city add the emblem of pears to its Coat of Arms.
It may be legend too that the Worcester Archers rallied under the pear trees before the battle of Agincourt and it is interesting to note that the pear blossom was borne as a badge by the Worcestershire Yeomanry Cavalry from the beginning of this century until 1956.
The City's motto Civitas in Bello et Pace Fidelis - 'The City faithful in war and in peace' - is thought to refer to the City's support of the Stuart cause. In 1621 Worcester was granted a charter by James I declaring the City to be a county in itself, separate from the County of Worcestershire - 'The County of the City of Worcester'. This distinction came to an end with the reform of the local government in 1974.’ (
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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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