Back in November I discovered the coat of arms of Sir John Wither Awdry, paternal grandfather of children’s author Wilbert Vere Awdry. The illustration was based on a blazon found in Burke’s Landed Gentry, 1862.

Page 39 of that book gives the shield Argent three cinquefoils Or on a bend Azure cotised of the same and crest out of a ducal coronet a lion’s head Azure for AWDRY OF SEEND.

The next entry is AWDRY OF NOTTON, and it is this one which includes Sir John. For the arms and crest of this branch, Burke merely says “same as AWDRY, of Seend”.

Today I have found the family referenced in the Burke’s Landed Gentry 1921. Page 53 of this book gives a slightly different blazon – shield Argent on a bend Azure cottised Sable between two crescents of the second a crescent between two cinquefoils Or and crest on a wreath of the colours in front of a lion’s head erased Azure gorged with a collar gemel Argent a cinquefoil between two crescents fesseways Or. Curiously the entry for Awdry of Seend in this edition gives no armorial details at all. Wilbert was ten years old when this version came out, and his date of birth is given in his father’s paragraph but no other detail about him personally is included.

The Awdrys are also mentioned at least twice by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies in his Armorial Families series. Page 51 of the 1895 book gives entries for multiple Awdry men, each time with the same information about Sir John’s arms – shield Argent on a bend cottised Azure three cinquefoils Or a crescent of the second for difference and crest out of a ducal coronet Or a lion’s head Azure. He also takes care to note that these are armorial bearings as used, and as quoted in Burke’s “Landed Gentry”, but for which no authority has been established. These comply with the blazon as I first encountered it, except that the crescent for difference was not originally there. The crescent, of course, is the traditional English mark of cadency for an armiger’s second son. I find it a little odd that Fox-Davies types the exact same information out for each of Sir John’s many sons whom he records, but does not say if any of them added extra cadency marks for their own position in the family tree. Pages 55 and 56 of the 1910 book gives the exact same blazon as Burke’s 1921.

For now I will accept the later version as the correct one and I have modified my illustration accordingly. Pending further research, I would speculate that the Awdrys of Seend are the senior branch of the family with the relatively simple arms while the Awdrys of Notton are the long-established offshoot with permanent (although inconsistently recorded) augmentations.

FURTHER VIEWING

• The Awdry Family History – Behind the Railway Series Supplemental (amateur documentary by “Captain Rutlidge”, 2021)