Sir William Pemberton

http://pembertonfamily.com/familyhistory/originsandheraldry/68-pemb...

The griffin is perhaps the oldest crest used by the Pembertons.

Coats of Arms

Pictured here is a short segment from the book Encyclopedia of Heraldry: or General Armory of England, Scotland, and Ireland, John Burke, Esq., London, 1844.Pemberton Coats Of Arms Descriptions

The abbreviations are a bit daunting, but we believe the first entry reads as follows:

Pemberton (St. Albans [a town 22 miles north of London] in the county Hertfordshire. Arms three buckets sable. Crest - A dragon's head erased sable.

These armorial bearings were undoubtedly those of Sir Francis Pemberton (18 July 1624 – 10 June 1697) who was an English judge and briefly Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench.

Some of the abbreviations refer to colours or "tinctures" as they are called in heraldry: sable (black), Gules (red), Or (gold), Vert (green), Azure (blue), Purpure (purple) Argent (white or silver), Tenne (orange), and Sanquine (crimson).

It is interesting that all these describe arms with a chevron and three buckets, except the last one which describes a single "water bucket" and no chevron. Ususally the buckets are hooped (strapped around with one or more belts to hold the wooden staves in place) and have handles.

Another arms description is found in A History of Shrewsbury, Vol. 2, by Hugh Own, page 296:

A. a chevron between three buckets S. hooped O.

This reads thus: The arms are a chevron between three buckets, with the buckets colored Sable [black] and hooped [bands around the wooden staves], the hoops are colored Or [gold].

The arms of the famous Confederate General John C. Pemberton, are described in the book Early New England people : some account of the Ellis, Pemberton, Willard, Prescott, Titcomb, Sewall and Longfellow, and allied families. Boston: W.B. Clarke & Carruth, c1882, thus:

Argent, a chevron, sa. between three buckets of the second, hooped and handled or.; crest, a dragon's head, couped sa. erect.

Quoting again from a previous book (A Complete Guide to Heraldry) , we find the following on Coats of Arms:

It would be foolish and misleading to assert that the possession of a coat of arms at the present date [1909] has anything approaching the dignity which attended to it in the days of long ago; but one must trace this through the centuries which have passed in order to form a true estimate of it, and also to properly appreciate a coat of arms at the present time. It is necessary to go back to the Norman Conquest and the broad dividing lines of social life in order to obtain a correct knowledge. The Saxons had no armory, though they had a very perfect civilisation. This civilisation William the Conqueror upset, introducing in its place the system of feudal tenure with which he had been familiar on the Continent. Briefly, this feudal system may be described as the partition of the land amongst the barons, earls, and others, in return for which, according to the land they held, they accepted a liability of military service for themselves and so many followers. These barons and earls in their turn sublet the land on terms advantageous to themselves, but nevertheless requiring from those to whom they sublet the same military service which the King had exacted from themselves proportionate with the extent of the sublet lands. Other subdivisions took place, but always with the same liabillity of military service,.. Every man who held land under these conditions - and it was impossible to hold land without them - was of the upper class. He was nobilis or known, and of a rank distinct, apart, and absolutely separate from the remainder of the population, who were at one time actually serfs ...This wide distinction between the upper and lower classes, ... was the very root and foundation of armory."

Devises and Charges

The chevron is one of the common devices displayed on many coats of arms. It is a french word meaning rafter and portrays a common peaked roof. The symbolism is of protection. The bucket, the most consistent or constant devise in Pemberton arms, is a water or well bucket, and most likely came from a Pemberton who provided water for combatants or for a beseiged community. Pemberton arms (the shield) are typically "charged" with a chevron and water buckets. For those wishing more information about the various devises used to charge arms, here is a good reference website.

The Three Buckets and the Three Dragons

Almost all Pemberton arms contain three buckets, nearly always hooped and handled, displayed around a chevron. The heraldryandcrests.com website says that it "was conferred on those who had supplied water to an army or a besieged place. The bucket is merely the more modern way of transporting water. The common well bucket is usually the type born in arms, but they can also be hooped or have feet." We do see feet on some Pemberton buckets. Their description of the use and meaning of the barrel devise is also interesting: "Barrels, or casks, were commonly used to hold beer or wine. It possibly symbolizes that the original bearer was a vendor of beer or wine, or an innkeeper. It occurs in the insignia of the BREWERS' and VINTNERS' Companies, as well as in the arms of a few families. It is often used as a pun on names ending in 'ton,' for example the crest of Hopton depicts a lion hopping on a tun. Also known as "Tun". The tradition that the word Pemberton originated from something like a barley field on a hill can be tied in with barrels to hold the barley beer, if one is speculating on connections between all these things.

A Pemberton arms of particular interest was found in Warwickshire and was claimed to be one of the first 50 arms granted after the Normans came to England. It displays three dragons, each placed where the buckets are usually found. Indeed nearly half the coats of arms found in the book Pemberton Pedigrees contain both buckets and dragons.

The Crest

The crest is the device above the shield in the coat of arms. The College of Arms, London has this to say about the crest: "It is a popular misconception that the word 'crest' describes a whole coat of arms or any heraldic device. It does not. A crest is a specific part of a full achievement of arms: the three-dimensional object placed on top of the helm."

Again we quote from A Complete Guide to Heraldry:

If uncertainty exists as to the origin of arms, it is as nothing to the huge uncertainly that exists concerning the beginnings of the crest. Most wonderful stories are told concerning it; that it meant this and meant the other, that the right to bear a crest was confined to this person or the other person. But practically the whole of the stories of this kind are either wild imagination or conjecture founded on insufficient facts.

The real facts - which one may as well state first as a basis to work upon - are very few and singularly unconvincing, and are useless as original data from which to draw conclusions.

First of all we have the definite, assured, and certain fact that the earliest known instance of a crest is in 1198, and we find evidence of the use of arms before that date.

The next fact is that we find infinitely more variation in the crests used by given families than in the arms, and that whilst the variation in the arms are as a rule trivial, and not affecting the general design of the shield, the changes in the crest are frequently radical, the crest borne by a family at one period having no earthly relation to that borne by the same family at another."

One can see a number of "Pemberton Crests" at the MyFamilySilver website. Click on the "Crest Finder" tab in the upper corner and enter Pemberton into the search box.

Pemberton Coats of Arms

Technically, as pointed out in the opening paragraph of this essay, there is no such thing as the Pemberton Coat of Arms. That is because a particular design does not belong to any Pemberton who is not of the lineage to which the arms were awarded. However, the number of arms attached to persons of Pemberton descent are very few and seem always to have three buckets and a chevron as depicted below.

However, the Surname Database states that "The earliest arms have the blazon of a silver shield, a chevron ermines between three black griffins' heads couped." Indeed, some of the arms in the PFWW library are three griffins instead of the more familiar buckets.

The Pemberton Family World Wide has over a dozen Pemberton coats of arms in its library. These are only available to members of the PFWW. To become a member, select "Become a Member" in the Site Access menu.

The coat of arms below has the following description associated with it. [Note that the italicized words are rendered exactly as in the description and are typical of such descriptions.]

Family of Dr. Thomas Pemberton, New Zealand.

Arms: Quarterly 1st and 4th Argent, a Chevron between 3 buckets sable, hooped and handled or, 2nd and 3rd argent, 3 dragons' heads sable. Crest: A dragon's head erect sable. Motto: Labore et honore.

Pemberton Crest

If you know some reliable information on this topic or pictures of other Pemberton arms or crests, please email the historian@pembertonfamily.com.

Coat Of Arms Art

Authoritative Texts on Heraldry

America Heraldica: A compilation of Coats of Arms, Crests and Mottoes of prominent American Families settled in this country before 1800 (Vermont, E de V, 1886) Crests of the Colonial Gentry (Knight and Butler) Armorial Families (Fox Davies, A C; 1929) Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry (1939 ed.) Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Gentry Fairbairn's Book of Crests of the Families of Great Britain and Ireland (Fairbairn, James; 1905 ed.)