76 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
LOCAL HEEALDEY. 
Part II. 
BY ARTHUR J. JEWERS, F.S.A. 
(Read November 27th, 1884.) 
We now come to the latest addition to our local heraldry j viz., 
the shields in the Athenaeum. The Council having (in 1883) 
accepted an offer of a series of armorial shields of local celebrities, 1 
the following have been placed in the Museum. In describing 
them we will commence with the south side, proceeding from the 
east end to the west, and so round the gallery, numbering the 
shields in consecutive order. 
I might occupy your time with accounts of the domestic and social 
habits of the times in which lived the men commemorated in the 
historical portion of the series. We might picture, more or less 
graphically, the lives of the gallant seamen and bold merchant 
adventurers who, particularly in the latter part of the sixteenth 
and earlier half of the seventeenth centuries, made our old town 
of so much note, and helped to lay the foundation of the present 
greatness of England, in her extended colonies and commercial 
relations. We might depict their mansions, whose windows were 
often adorned with armorial glass setting forth the gentle descent 
of their owners, and of which so few traces remain. We might 
clothe, as it were, in living flesh the dry bones of such meagre 
historical data as the records of births, marriages, and deaths. 
Bare as these at first sight seem, what a tale is hidden in them of 
joy and happiness, and anon what sorrows and pain — the rejoicing 
for the birth of an heir to accumulating wealth, of a son to extend 
the fame of a worthy family, or the advent of a daughter to 
gladden and brighten the home ; and then the brightness is 
1 The author omits to state that the Society is indebted to him tor the 
very valuable and artistically painted series of shields, the blazon of which 
is described in this paper. — Ed. 
