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Category Archives: Sherburne

O is for Opportunities Lost and Found

18 Tuesday Apr 2023

Posted by Anne Young in A to Z 2023, British East India Company, India, Sherburne

≈ 9 Comments

Joseph Sherburne, the husband of my 4th great grand aunt (1751–1805), was born in 1751 in Falmouth, Cornwall. His father, also named Joseph (c. 1721–1763), was a seaman, captain of the pacquet “Hanover” (a ‘pacquet’ or ‘packet’ was a small-to-medium mail, passenger, and general-cargo boat, usually coastal). In 1763, when young Joseph was twelve, the “Hanover” was wrecked in a hurricane and his father drowned.

EAST INDIA COMPANY

In 1767 Joseph Sherburne junior, aged 16, was appointed a writer (junior clerk) in the East India Company. He quickly rose to Head Assistant in the Accountant’s Office, and in 1870 was promoted to Assistant under William Harwood, the Collector of two Districts, Rajemehal [Rajmahal] and Boglipore [Bhagalpur], 200 miles north of Calcutta. Hoping to succeed to the collectorship, Sherburne took the opportunity to study the local language and the administration of collections.

A Collector was head of a district’s revenue management, responsible for the registration, alteration, and partition of holdings; the settlement of disputes; the management of indebted estates; loans to agriculturists, and famine relief. A Collector also served as District Magistrate, exercising general supervision over inferior courts and directing police work.

SUPERSEDED

In 1773 Sherburne missed out on promotion to Harwood’s position, superseded by another candidate, James Barton. Sherburne claimed that Barton was his junior in the service and less experienced. He ‘returned to the Presidency‘—was moved to Calcutta. For the next five years he held no substantial position in the Company and received only a small monthly retainer.

SUPERSEDED AGAIN

In 1778 he gained an appointment, becoming Superintendent of Police in Calcutta under Charles Stafford Playdell. When Playdell died in 1779 Sherburne was again passed over for promotion, superseded by a Mr Motte who, Sherburne noted, was not at the time even in the Company’s employment.

In 1781, Joseph Sherburne, Deputy Jemedar [a police rank, roughly equivalent to army Lieutenant] was a Member of the Grand Jury in the Calcutta trial of Mr James Augustus Hicky, printer of the Bengal Gazette. Hicky, a strong critic of Governor Hastings, was found guilty of libel and sentenced to jail. The newspaper was shut down.

MEMORIALISING THE COMPANY

In 1784 and 1785 Sherburne, by then senior merchant at Fort William, Calcutta on the Bengal Establishment wrote a series of memorials to John Macpherson, acting Governor General, to Warren Hastings, the Governor-General, and to “The Honorable Court of Directors for the Affairs of the Honorable United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies”, giving a history of his employment with the Company and petitioning to be appointed again, in a different capacity.

Sherburne’s memorials were published and can be read through GoogleBooks

BAZAAR

In the early 1780s Sherburne established Sherburne Bazar in Calcutta, where the Chandni Chawk now stands. Sherburne and two other merchants separately petitioned the Governor General and Council for permission to build market places in accordance with a 1781 Bye Law. They pledged to set up bazaars with pucca (lit. ‘ripe’, here, ‘well-constructed’, ‘permanent’) buildings, tiled shops and stalls instead of the straw huts of the desi (native Indian) bazaars.

Sherburne’s was a private bazaar, specialising in articles catering to European demands. Of the private bazaars his is said to have stocked the largest number of articles.

A view in the Bazaar, leading to the Chitpore Road in about 1815 by James Baillie Fraser from his ‘Views of Calcutta and its Environs’ . Image retrieved from the British Library.
Chandni Chowk Street, Kolkata 2008 photograph by P.K.Niyogi Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

SCAVENGER OF CALCUTTA

In June 1785 Joseph Sherbourne was appointed” Scavenger of Calcutta” under the Commissioner of Police. “Scavenger” is derived from “Scavage”, a tax levied upon goods offered for sale subject to duty. A Scavenger was an officer charged with inspecting the goods and collecting the tax. In 1786, when he joined the Freemason Provincial Grand Lodge of Bengal, Joseph Sherburne described himself as “Scavenger of the Town of Calcutta”.

It seems Sherburne’s persistence in his memorials petitioning to be re-employed by the Company paid off, for in April 1787 Joseph Sherburne was appointed Collector of Beerbhoom [Birbhum] and Bishenpore [Bishnupur], 80 miles north-west of Calcutta.

COLLECTOR

In histories of rural Bengal, Sherburne’s appointment of April 1787 as Collector of Beerbhoom and Bishenpore is regarded as the beginning of a new period of order and prosperity in those districts. Sherburne is said to have ruled sternly, “as a governor of a newly subjected frontier ought to rule”. During Sherburne’s brief administration—a year and a half—“the capital of the united district was transferred from Bishenpore, on the south of the Adjii, to Soorie [Suri] the present headquarters in Beerbhoom, on the north of the river; the larger bodies of marauders were broken up, and two hereditary princes reduced to the rank of private country gentlemen.”

Under Sherburne’s administration of Beerbhoom and Bishenpore, “the two frontier principalities had passed from the condition of military fiefs into that of a regular British district administered by a collector and covenanted assistants, defended by the Company’s troops, studded with fortified factories, intersected by a new military road, and possessing daily communication with the seat of government in Calcutta.”

In November 1788 Sherburne was removed as Collector, recalled on suspicion of corruption. With the charge no longer an impediment to his employment in the Company, however, 12 years later, in 1801 he was again employed by the East India Company.

Water-colour painting of the Fort of Rajanagar in the district of Beerbhom [Rajnagar, Birbhum] dated 1790, during the third Mysore War, by Colin MacKenzie (1754-1821). Image from the collection of the British Library.

DEBTOR

Discussing the ruinous interest rates that debtors in 18th century Calcutta sometimes incurred, the memoirist William Hickey, who knew Sherburne, recounts that he, “upon his first arrival from England, borrowed from a Bengal sitcar [probably sowcar, a native banker] nine hundred sicca rupees [coined money] for which he executed a bond and warrant of attorney to confess judgment, payable in six months, and not having a command of money he continued to renew the security every six months ; I myself [Hickey] saw this gentleman prosecuted in the Supreme Court for fifty-eight thousand odd hundred rupees, to which enormous amount the comparatively trifling sum of nine hundred had swelled in the manner above mentioned.”

(On these figures, Sherburne was being sued for 65 times the original loan.)

MARRIAGE

At some point in the twelve years between his removal as Collector in 1788 and his re-employment in 1801, Sherburne appears to have left India to travel to Boston Massachusetts, where he had distant cousins. He was possibly hoping to find a wife. There, on 7 July 1793, Joseph Sherburn married Frances Johnstone Dana (1768–1832). She was the older sister of my 4th great grandfather William Pulteney Dana, and the aunt of my 3rd great grandmother Charlotte Frances Dana. The marriage record is annotated “of Great Britain”. Frances Dana’s father had been born in Cambridge, Massachusetts; presumably she was visiting her cousins there.

Joseph Sherburne and his new wife returned to Bengal.

In June 1802 Joseph Sherburne was appointed Collector of Boglepore (present day Bhagalpur in Bihar).

Water-colour drawing of the Hill House at Bhagalpur by Sir Charles D’Oyly (1781-1845), September 1820. Image from the British Library. Hill House was built by Augustus Cleveland (1755-84) of the Bengal Civil Service who was Collector and Judge at Bhagalpur.

CHILDREN

In 1785 Eldred Thomas Sherburne, son of Mr. Joseph Sherburne, Senior Merchant, was baptised in Calcutta. His mother was ‘a Brahmin’. In the early years of the nineteenth century Thomas Eldred Sherburne kept a school in the Chitpore Road.

Joseph and Frances Sherburne had two children, both baptised in Boglepore [Bhagalpur]. Their son Pulteney Johnstone Poole Sherburne was baptised on 16 December 1802 and their daughter Frances Henrietta Laura Sherburne on 3 October 1803.

DEATH

Joseph died 54 years old on 15 July 1805. His death notice in the Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser of 10 February 1806 states that he was late Judge Magistrate of Purneah (Purnia, a district in the Baghalpur Division of Bengal), and Senior Merchant on the Bengal Establishment. He died intestate; administration was given to his widow.

Frances stayed in India for a number of years but eventually returned to England, probably in 1819 after 14 years of sorting out Joseph’s affairs and then the affairs of her brother Charles Patrick Dana who died in India in 1816. Frances died in England in 1832.

RELATED POSTS AND FURTHER READING

  • Frances Johnstone Sherburne (1768 – 1832)
  • Pulteney Johnstone Poole Sherburne (1802 – 1831)
  • Hunter, W. Wilson. (1868). The Annals of Rural Bengal. London: Smith, Elder. pp 16-18. Retrieved through Hathitrust. 
  • Mukhopadhyay, Asok. “CHANDNEY BAZAAR: A Neglected Element of Change Toward Social Awakening of Bengal.” PURONOKOLKATA, 13 Aug. 2019, https://puronokolkata.com/2019/07/01/chandney-bazaar-an-ignored-element-of-change-toward-social-awakening-of-bengal/

Wikitree: Joseph Sherburne (1751 – 1805)

Pulteney Johnstone Poole Sherburne (1802 – 1831)

18 Saturday Jul 2020

Posted by Anne Young in British Empire, heraldry, military, portrait, Sherburne

≈ 2 Comments

In compiling this brief biography of my 1st cousin 5 times removed Pulteney Sherburne (1802 – 1831), I have tried to flesh out the bare record with a few inferences and conjectures but, with little material to draw on beyond names, dates, and the sparse chronology of his army career, I am afraid the portrait I have drawn of the man may be a little distorted. It’s the best I can do.

Born in India

Pulteney Johnstone Poole Sherburne, the son of Joseph Sherburne (1751 – 1805) and Frances Johnstone Sherborne née Dana (1768 – 1832) was born in
north-east India and baptised in Bhagalpur in 1802. Joseph Sherburne was a Magistrate Collector and senior merchant with the East India Company. Pulteney was the oldest child. A sister, Frances, was born in 1803. Joseph Sherburne died in 1805 and Frances Johnstone Sherburne returned to England with her two children.

Army career

On 20 April 1813 Pulteney Sherburne was appointed as an ensign with the South Hants Regiment of Militia. The militia was designed to serve as a home guard or reserve force. In 1813 England was at war with the French. Sherburne was aged 11 and it appears that this was intended as a first step in a military career. In modern terms he had become a part-time officer cadet.

All three of Pulteney’s surviving uncles were in the army at this time:

  • George Kinnaird Dana (1770 – 1837) was Lieutenant-Colonel of the 6th garrison regiment serving in Nenagh, Tipperary, Ireland.; he was promoted to Major-General on 4 June 1813
  • William Pulteney Dana (1776 – 1861) was paymaster in his brother’s regiment, also serving in Ireland
  • Charles Patrick Dana (1784 – 1816) served with the East India Company and was a captain with the 23rd Regiment of the Bengal Native Infantry at the time of his death at sea travelling back to England in 1816

On 27 July 1815, a month after the Battle of Waterloo, Volunteer Pulteney Johnstone Poole Sherburne was commissioned as an Ensign (without purchase) in the First Regiment of Foot, the Royal Scots. An ensign was the most junior rank of commissioned officer in the army. Pulteney Sherburne was about 13 years old. At the time the Royal Scots had four battalions. I am not sure which battalion Sherburne served in. The first was stationed in Ireland from 1816 to 1825; the second was in India and involved in the Third Anglo-Maratha War; the third formed part of the Army of Occupation following the Battle of Waterloo. It was disbanded in 1817. The fourth battalion was used mainly as a depot battalion for providing the other three battalions with drafts and it was recruited mainly from the militia. It was disbanded in 1816.

In 1818 Sherburne transferred from the 1st Foot where he had been on half-pay to the 70th Foot. In 1818 and 1819 the 70th Foot was serving in Canada: at Fort George from April 1817, Kingston from June 1819 and Quebec from May 1821.

The Gazette of 18 April 1822 announced the promotion of Ensign Pulteney J. Poole Sherburne, from the 70th Foot, to Lieutenant (without purchase) in the First Regiment of Foot. The Gazette of 11 May 1822 updated the announcement to say the Commission of Lieutenant Sherburne, of the 1st Foot, has been antedated to 18th October 1820, but that he had not been allowed to receive any back-pay. It seems that although Sherburne had been a lieutenant with the 1st Foot from 1820 he had been paid as such only from 1822.

In the Gazette of 24 October 1822 Pulteney J. Poole Sherburne of the 1st Regiment of Foot exchanged with Lieutenant Daniel Keogh of the 58th Foot who was on half-pay. The 58th Foot was in Jamaica, the West Indies, from 1816 to 1828 when it was deployed to Ceylon.

I can find no further notices in the Gazette revealing Sherburne’s military career.

Bruce Bassett-Powell who maintains a website devoted to the study of military uniforms at Uniformology.com, commented:

 Lieutenant Sherbourne’s experience as a company officer would be fairly typical. … The dramatic draw down of regimental personnel after the Napoleonic Wars left many career officers without a regiment of their choice, so officers were transferred with or without purchase to any regiment they could find. … [Sherburne’s] career was so very typical of the era in which he served.

email correspondence July 2020

Barrack Master

 From about 1825 (possibly as early as 1822) when he exchanged out of the 1st to the 58th on half-pay, Lieutenant P. P. Sherburne held the position of Barrack Master at Berbice in the British West Indies, now in present-day Guyana.

From 1822 British army barracks were the responsibility of the Board of Ordnance. In 1826 there were 41 barrack masters in the Foreign Departments administered by the Board; the West Indies station had 14 barracks.

Barrack masters oversaw individual barracks and their role was to see
that the blocks were properly equipped, maintained and run in accordance
with a bureaucratic system of regular returns.

In the 1826 Army Ordnance estimates Berbice had 10,000 pounds allocated for a new Barrack, Commissariat and Ordnance Establishment at Canje Point to replace the Barrack Establishment at St Andrews which was not worth repairing.

The army in Berbice used slave labour hired from others. There were several complaints about Lieutenant Sherburne and his treatment of slaves while he was barrack master; in at least one instance Sherburne was investigated for alleged cruelty and the charges were disproved.

New Amsterdam Berbice in the 1830s from Sketch Map of British Guiana by Robert Hermann Schomburgk (1804–65) published in London 1840 retrieved from World Digital Library https://www.wdl.org/en/item/11335/

British colony in Berbice

The garrison at Berbice was quartered at Fort Canje one mile from New Amsterdam. The 1838 Army Medical Services Report describes the garrison as a small military post of square form bounded by the Berbice River on one side and a small stream called the Canje. The two other sides were protected by trenches and wooden pallisades. The ground on which it is built is low and swampy.

The 1838 report of the Army Medical Services observed that the climate of the whole of British Guiana was noted for its extreme moisture, the rate of annual rainfall being six times that of Great Britain. The average temperature in Berbice was 80 degrees Fahrenheit with a minimum of 75 and maximum of 86. The Berbice district was the most southerly British possession in the West Indies. It extended 100 miles along the coast and the ground was so low that at high-water it would be completely inundated were it not protected by strong dams (dykes).  Where the country was not under cultivation in the 1830s it was a succession of forests, savannahs and marshes. The soil was said not to absorb the moisture and became very muddy. The air was consequently reported as extremely humid.

A 2012 visitor described the location:

It was always a sickly piece of land. Even now, few people live out here, on the swamps formed at the confluence of the Berbice and the Canje. The clay is always weeping oily water, and the air is itchy with mosquitoes. … There was no view beyond,just an enormous burning sky and a fringe of thick mangrove.

Fort Canje near New Amsterdam by John Gimlette http://www.guyanagraphic.com/blog/john-gimlette/fort-canje-near-new-amsterdam
Canje River, Guyana taken from the Canje Bridge in New Amsterdam in 2009 by User:Loriski , CC BY-SA 3.0 retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.

In 1838 there was a barrack with an hospital and offices within the fort for the accommodation of the troops. The barrack was an oblong wooden building with a basement used for stores and two upper stories each divided into four apartments for the soldiers with some smaller rooms for non-commissioned officers. The hospital was also built of wood with a basement and two stories.

British Guiana was not a healthy place. In 1826 there were 1162 white
troops and 74 black troops in the colony. In that year there were 115 deaths among those troops. In 1831 there were 968 white troops and 2160 black troops with 113 deaths that year. Most of the deaths among white troops at that time were from fevers, particularly yellow fever.

Leave in England

In 1830 Sherburne was on leave in England and he signed his final will on 7 August 1830 at Burton in Wiltshire. He described himself as “Lieutenant in His Majestys Army and Barrack Master to the forces serving in the Colony of Berbice”. He appointed his cousin Joseph Coxon of Burton, Wiltshire, as executor and the main beneficiary was Joseph Coxon’s daughter Isabella Coxon.

[In 1788 Harriet Sherburne, sister of Pulteney’s father Joseph, had married John Coxon, Esq., Command of the Grosvenor, East Indiaman; the Grosvenor, under the command of John Coxon was shipwrecked in 1782; John Coxon was among those who died afterwards. Harriet’s son Joseph (1779 – 1842) had a daughter Isabella born 1809.]

Death in West Indies

Pulteney Sherburne died in Berbice on 28 June 1831 aged about 28.

At the time of his death he was Barrack Master, with the rank of Lieutenant. His death notices in The Asiatic Journal, Gentleman’s Magazine, and New Monthly Magazine describe him as “late of the “Royals” but the army death notices state he was of the 58th Regiment of Foot on half pay. As the 1st Regiment of Foot was more prestigious than the 58th Foot his family perhaps wanted to retain that association from before he transferred out.


Bookplate

Bookplate in the collection of the University of British Columbia

In its Rare Books and Special Collection, the University of British Columbia has a bookplate belonging to P. J. P. Sherburne.  The bookplate is not associated with a particular book and is mentioned in H.W. Fitcham, “Artist and Engravers of British and American Bookplates,” 1897. Fitcham dates the bookplate to 1820. In 1820 Pulteney Sherburne turned 18 and was promoted to Lieutenant. The bookplate has a shield, Quarterly— 1 and 4, Vert, an eagle displayed argent ; 2 and 3, Argent, a lion rampant. Crest : An unicorn’s head. Motto : “Je ne cede a personne.”  The Sherburne coat of arms was discussed in a previous post on The search for the Arms of the Dana family as it appears engraved on a box which Pulteney’s mother left in her will to her niece and goddaughter Charlotte, my 3rd great grandmother.

The motto is unusual but as Arthur Fox-Davies notes in his Complete Guide to Heraldry, mottoes do not form part of the grant of arms in England but are “ left purely to the personal pleasure of every individual”. The phrase “Je ne cede a personne”  or in Latin: Concedo Nulli – I yield to none – appears associated with the Dutch philosopher Erasmus in the 1805 book “Memoirs of Angelus Politianus, Joannes Picus of Mirandula, Actius Sincerus Sannazarius, Petrus Bembus, Hieronymus Fracastorius, Marcus Antonius Flaminius, and the Amalthei : translations from their poetical works: and notes and observations concerning other literary characters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries”.

Miniature Portrait

My father has a miniature portrait of Pulteney Sherborne passed to him
from his grandfather, Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny who received it from his grandmother Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny née Dana.  The portrait was left to Charlotte Frances Dana by her aunt and godmother, Frances Sherbourne née Dana, Pulteney’s mother.

The uniform in the miniature portrait could be either the 58th or the 70th regiment. Bruce Bassett-Powell confirms both regiments had black facings with gold lace, evenly spaced.  Bassett-Powell suggests it is possible that the portrait of him was done in Canada, that is when he was serving with the 70th Foot.

Frances Sherburne, Pulteney’s mother, made her will not long after she heard of Pulteney’s death – sadly both her children predeceased her and there are no descendants. She specifically mentioned the portrait in her will, leaving it to her niece and goddaughter.

In his portrait Pulteney Sherburne looks bright, determined and optimistic. The role of Barrack Master in Berbice would have been demanding as he was in charge of constructing a new barracks and dealing with living in a challenging humid climate. Sherburne’s army career, cut short by his premature death aged 28, was not notably successful. He maintained his career despite the army being reduced following the end of the Napoleonic wars. Born in India and serving in Canada and the West Indies, Pulteney Johnstone Poole Sherburne (1802 – 1831) was one of the many men who contributed to the making of the British Empire across the globe.

Sources

  • Sherborn, Charles Davies (1901). A history of the family of Sherborn. Mitchell and Hughes, London. Page 184 retrieved through archive.org and bookplate mentioned page 156
  • FindMyPast British Army Officer Promotions 1800-1815
  • The London Gazette:
    • 5 August 1815, Issue 17048, Page 1589
    • 27 April 1822, Issue 17812, Page 694
    • 11 May 1822, Issue 17816, Page 786
    • 23 November 1822, Issue 17872, Page 1915
  • The army list. 1820. p. 6. P. P. Sherburne 27 July 15 Ensign with the 70th Foot.
  • Weaver, Lawrence (1915). The story of the Royal Scots (the Lothian regiment) formerly the First or the Royal Regiment of Foot, London. p. 170 retrieved through archive.org
  • Email correspondence July 2020 with Bruce Bassett-Powell who maintains a website devoted to the study of military uniforms at Uniformology.com
  • Great Britain House of Commons (1826). Journals of the House of Commons. H.M. Stationery Office. p. 710. Army:- Ordnance Estimates 1826/7 Appendix to the Supplementary Estimate Item no. 2 Barrack Masters and Barrack Serjeants: list by station.
  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords (1828). Papers presented to Parliament by His Majesty’s Command, in Explanation of the Measures Adopted by His Majesty’s Government, for the Melioration of the Condition of the Slave Population in His Majesty’s Possessions in the West Indies, on the Continent of South America, and at The Mauritius (in Continuation of the Papers Presented in the Year 1827). Pages 153, 213, and 234.
  • John Lean, ”The Secret Lives of Slaves: Berbice, 1819–1827,” (PhD diss., University of. Canterbury, 2002). p. 309. Retrieved through http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.909.6252&rep=rep1&type=pdf
  • Burnard, Trevor G. (Trevor Graeme) (2010). Hearing slaves speak. The Caribbean Press, [Georgetown, Guyana]. case 71 p. 123. Retrieved through http://caribbeanpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Trevor-Burnard-Hearing-Slaves-Speak-Complete-Text.pdf
  • Great Britain. Army Medical Services; A. M.. Tulloch; Henry Marshall (1838). Statistical Report on the Sickness, Mortality, and Invaliding Among the Troops in the West Indies. W. Clowes and Sons. pp. 13–17
  • Death notices
    • The army list. July 1831. p. 84– Deaths.
    • The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany. Wm. H. Allen & Company. 1831. p. 99.
    • The Gentleman’s Magazine: 1831. E. Cave. 1831. p. 477.
    • The New Monthly Magazine. 1831. p. 468.
  • The National Archives; Kew, England; Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 1790 retrieved through ancestry.com
  • Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles (1909). A complete guide to heraldry. Jack, London. p. 448 retrieved through gutenberg.org 
  • Greswell, William Parr & Poliziano, Angelo, 1454-1494 & Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 1463-1494 & Sannazaro, Jacopo, 1458-1530 & Bembo, Pietro, 1470-1547 et al. (1805). Memoirs of Angelus Politianus, Joannes Picus of Mirandula, Actius Sincerus Sannazarius, Petrus Bembus, Hieronymus Fracastorius, Marcus Antonius Flaminius, and the Amalthei : translations from their poetical works: and notes and observations concerning other literary characters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (The 2nd ed., greatly augm). Cadell & Davies, London. pp 90-1 retrieved from archive.org.

Related posts

  • Frances Johnstone Sherburne (1768 – 1832)
  • A search for the arms of the Dana family

Frances Johnstone Sherburne (1768 – 1832)

13 Monday Jul 2020

Posted by Anne Young in Dana, India, probate, Sherburne

≈ 4 Comments

Frances Johnstone Sherborne née Dana (1768 – 1832), elder sister of William Pulteney Dana, was the aunt and godmother of my 3rd great grandmother Charlotte Frances Dana.

She was born in London on 3 September 1768, third of thirteen children of the Reverend Edmund Dana and his wife Helen. Her eldest sister, given the same name, died in infancy the previous year. Her sister Elizabeth Caroline Dana, born in 1767, was the oldest surviving child of the ten siblings to survive infancy.

On 7 July 1793 Frances Johnstone Dana married Joseph Sherburn in Boston Massachusetts. Frances Dana’s father had been born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Frances, presumably, was visiting her relatives there.

Joseph Sherburne was born 1751 in Falmouth, Cornwall, England to Joseph Sherburn (c 1721 – 1763), captain of the packet “Hanover”. In 1767 Joseph Sherburn Jr aged 16 began a career in India with the East India Company rising to the rank of Senior Merchant. The 1788 India Calendar lists Joseph Sherburne as Collector of Beerbhoom & Bishenpore [Collector of taxes and Magistrate in West Bengal in present day Birbhum and Bishnapur]. In November 1788, however, after only eighteen months in office, he was recalled on suspicion of corruption.  This appears to have been unfounded, and Joseph Sherburne was again employed by the East India Company. In 1802 he was appointed Collector of Boglepore (present day Bhagalpur in Bihar north-east India).

Joseph and Frances Sherburne had two children, both baptised in Bhagalpur: a son Pulteney Johnstone Poole Sherburne baptised on 16 December 1802, and a daughter Frances Henrietta Laura Sherburne baptised on 3 October 1803.

Joseph died on 15 July 1805. His death notice in the English Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser of 10 February 1806 stated he was late Judge Magistrate of Purneah and Senior Merchant on the Bengal Establishment now known as Purnia it was a district of the Baghalpur Division of Bengal) .Joseph died intestate and administration was given to his widow.

After the death of her husband, Frances returned to England with her children.

In 1813 Frances’s son Pulteney Johnstone Poole Sherburne joined the army, as an ensign with South Hants Regiment Of Militia from 1813. On 27 July 1815, barely a month after the Battle of Waterloo, Volunteer Pulteney Johnstone Poole Sherburne was commissioned as an Ensign (without purchase) in the First Regiment of Foot. [I will write about his career separately.] He died on 28 June 1831 as a Lieutenant in Berbice in present-day Guyana in the West Indies.

Miniature portrait of Pulteney Johnstone Poole Sherburne

Frances’s daughter Frances Henrietta Laura Sherburne, seventeen years old, died on 8 November 1819 at Leyton, Essex (now a suburb of London, about five miles northeast of the City), and was buried there in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin. The churchyard, now in poor repair, once had an altar-tomb surmounted by an oval urn erected to the memory of Frances Sherburne, signed by Thomas Mocock of Leyton (presumably the mason). I do not know if it has survived.

In 1832 Frances Johnstone Sherburne died in Chelsea, London. She was also buried at Leyton.

Frances Johnstone Sherburne’s will dated 19 October 1831 has a detailed
list of bequests. To her god-daughter Charlotte Frances Dana she left

  • her large Bible
  • gold watch chain loop and seals complete
  • a real sable tippet
  • a pair of gold Hindustani earrings
  • amethyst broach set round with whole pearls
  • a pair of ??? clasps ??? in ??? set round with pearls
  • a white carnelian ??? Broach and a bracelets single row
  • two rings one with hair and small pearls the other with a Emerald and Ruby Gold Buckle with garnets for Both Garnet chain bracelets and earrings with Drops
  • Also the face of my sainted child Frances Henrietta Laura Sherbourne on no account to be parted with the miniature picture of my son Pulteney Johnstone Poole Sherbourne
  • Sandal wood work box fitted up with silver containing gold thimble in gold ??? ??? and ??? silver ??? basket and yard and Tortoiseshell window ??? hair chain
  • and two pair of bracelets to ??? Black cut bracelets and ??? to
    match with Black snaps cut coral earrings
  • Red morocco trinket box
  • A pair of plain B??? Earrings without drops
  • Tortoiseshell ??otting box
  • More’s Practical Piety 2 vols of Elegant Extracts in Prose and Verse More’s Sacred Dramas [Hannah More was an English writer, philanthropist and leading member of the Blue Stockings Society; Jane Austen mentioned Elegant Extracts in her novel Emma]
snippet from the will of Frances Johnstone Sherbourne with the bequest to her niece Charlotte Frances Dana – any transcription suggestions gratefully received

Other people mentioned in the will were her nieces Penelope Dana [Anna Penelope], Helen Kinnaird Dana, daughter of William Pulteney Dana; her niece Harriete Gibbons, daughter of her sister Helen Gordon Gibbons née Dana; her sister Gibbons; her sister Charlotte Dana [probably her sister in law, wife of William Pulteney Dana]; her sister Armstrong; her niece Frances Harriette Wood [daughter of her brother Charles Patrick Dana]; her nephew Charles Edmund Dana [son of Charles Patrick Dana]; her nephew Henry Edmund Dana [son of William Pulteney Dana]; her cousin the Honourable Lady Hope [Georgiana daughter of George Lord Kinnaird, her mother’s brother]; her daughter Eliza Hope; some friends and servants.

The family Bible came to my father from his grandfather Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny. An inscription in the front describes how it was given to him in 1892 by his grandmother Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny nee Dana (1820- 1904). An inscription above this reads:

The Gift of Mrs Frances Johnstone Sherborne to her niece and God-daughter Charlotte Frances Dana by her will –

My father also has the miniature of Frances’s son Pulteney Sherburne.

Frances Sherborne also gave her niece and god-daughter a small sandalwood box with a silver plaque engraved with a shield and a motto. The box is a family heirloom which was owned by my great aunt Nancy Movius née Champion de Crespigny and has since been passed to Nancy Movius’ grand-daughter. The heraldry on that box is described at my father’s post at A search for the arms of the Dana family.

The box left in her 1831 will by Frances Johnstone Sherbourne to her niece and god-daughter Charlotte Frances Dana and now in the possession of Charlotte’s 3rd great grand daughter; the 5th great niece of Frances.

Sources

  • Sherborn, Charles Davies (1901). A history of the family of Sherborn. Mitchell and Hughes, London. Page 184 retrieved through archive.org
  • East India Company List – A List of the Company’s Civil Servants, at their Settlements in the East-Indies; Reference Number: b22610911 retrieved through ancestry.com
  • Hunter, W. Wilson. (1868). The annals of rural Bengal. London: Smith, Elder. Pp 16-18. Retrieved through Hathitrust. 
  • The Asiatic annual register, or, A View of the history of Hindustan, and of the politics, commerce and literature of Asia. volume 4 (1802). p. 96. Retrieved through Hathitrust.
  • Imperial Gazetteer of India (1908), v. 20, p. 412. Retrieved through FIBIS
  • ‘Leyton: Churches’, in A History of the County of Essex: Volume 6, ed. W R Powell (London, 1973), pp. 214-223. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol6/pp214-223 . “An altar-tomb in the churchyard, surmounted by an oval urn, to Frances Sherburne (1819) is signed by Thomas Mocock of Leyton.”
  • The National Archives; Kew, England; Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 1801 retrieved through ancestry.com
  • Asiatic Journal. Parbury, Allen, and Company. 1832. P.124. Death notice.
  • Ford, Susan Allen (2007). “Reading Elegant Extracts in Emma: Very Entertaining!” Persuasions on-Line, Jane Austen Society of North America, jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol28no1/ford.htm.

Related posts

  • A search for the arms of the Dana family

A search for the arms of the Dana family

24 Saturday May 2014

Posted by Anne Young in Dana, heraldry, Movius, Rafe de Crespigny, Sherburne

≈ 4 Comments

A Search for the Arms of the Dana Family
by Rafe de Crespigny
May 2014

Introduction:

The Dana family is noted in American history, and has members and kinfolk around the world. The coat of arms, however, potentially an insignia of identity and relationship, has been a source of confusion; enhanced by contradictory and essentially spurious accounts of the family origin.

Burke’s Encyclopaedia of Heraldry lists the armigerous families of Britain in alphabetical order, but this comprehensive work contains no mention of any family of the Dana surname.1

Bolton’s American Armory, however, offers four different forms of arms:2

  • One, ascribed to Richard Dana (1700-1772) and based on the frame of his portrait, has a silver shield with a blue chevron engrailed [see below] between three “stags:” these last, however, will be discussed further. The crest is a fox and the motto Cavendo tutus.
  • The second, based on the bookplate of Richard’s son Francis Dana (1743-1811), is described with a red chevron rather than a blue one, again with the crest of a fox and the motto Cavendo tutus.3 A note adds that Francis’ son Richard Henry Dana Senior (1787-1879) had a gold shield, and unicorns instead of stags.
  • A third, based on the bookplate of Charles L Dana, has “On a bend [see below] three chevrons [or chevronels];” no colours are specified. The crest is described as an ox’s head cabossed (facing the viewer); no motto is given. There were several men named Charles Dana with the middle initial L, but this one is probably Charles Loomis Dana (1852-1935), a noted physician.
  • And the fourth, from the bookplate of Charles A Dana, has a shield divided horizontally into six bars, with three lions rampant [see below] wearing crowns; again, no colours are specified. Here too the crest is an ox’s head, and there is no motto. Again, there have been many Charles Danas with the middle initial A, but this one is probably Charles Anderson Dana (1881-1975), lawyer, businessman and philanthropist; another Charles Anderson Dana (1819-1897) was a well-known journalist associated with General Ulysses S Grant during the American Civil War, but the lawyer appears more likely to have used a coat of arms. 

All these variants are discussed further below, and I argue that Bolton’s is incorrect in a number of details, but the two used by Richard and his son Francis are the earliest recorded and appear the most significant.

A number of different designs, each purporting to be the arms of the Dana family, may also be found on internet websites:

  • “Arms and Badges” at http://www.armsandbadges.com/browse.aspx?List=3f80a37c-4a73-4b95-bd3c-e7a36871d7a4; accessed May 2014. This shows a white/silver shield with a red chevron and three stags, similar to Bolton’s description of that used by Francis Dana above. There is an eagle’s head above the shield, looking like a crest, but Arms and Badges applies the eagle’s head to all its presentations; it is not specific to any family. 
  • “Heraldry WS” at http://www.heraldry.ws/html/dana.html; accessed May 2014. This is the shield which Bolton’s ascribes to Charles L Dana above, with the colours shown as a black shield, a white bend and green chevrons. 
  • “House of Names,” which is associated with “The Red Thread,” presents two versions at http://the-red-thread.net/genealogy/dana.html; accessed May 2014.
    • An “English” version has a gold shield, with a red-and-white checked chevron between three silver trefoils – similar to shamrocks, as below; this is heraldically incorrect, for silver should not be placed upon gold.
    • An “Italian” version has vertical bars of gold and blue.
  • “4crests” at http://www.4crests.com/dana-coat-of-arms.html; accessed May 2014. This design is similar to the English version of House of Names, but the trefoils are green, which is heraldically acceptable.

Outline sketches of the various charges mentioned above are provided here:

Just as the heraldry is confused, so too accounts of the origins of the surname on the websites are varied, vague and unreliable. There are prosaic explanations, including the obvious one that it referred to a Dane or – in contrast – from House of Names, that it is an Anglo-Saxon name, taken from the word dann, meaning “valley,” an early site of settlement. House of Names also finds an Italian origin in Piedmont, implying some connection to the royal house of Savoy, future kings of Italy. Another suggestion cites the personal name Daniel while, still further afield, The Red Thread offers a theory that the Danas may be connected to Dan, one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. 4crests even refers to the mythical princess Danae, who was imprisoned in a tower by her father but was seduced by the Greek god Zeus, manifested as a shower of gold, and gave birth to the hero Perseus. It’s good fun, but it’s not useful.4

In fact, the origins of the Dana family are quite obscure, and their heraldry is erratic. By the use of library resources, however, including material which has been placed on the internet, and various items of physical evidence, it is possible to trace some history and to recreate the earliest coat of arms.

The family in Massachusetts: 

There are two very useful books on the history of the family: The Dana Saga: three centuries of the Dana family, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana (1881-1950), published by The Cambridge Historical Society in 1941,5 and The Dana Family in America, by Elizabeth Ellery Dana (1846-1939), published at Cambridge in 1956.6 The Dana Family is a work of almost seven hundred pages; it was begun by Elizabeth Ellery, continued after her death by her nephew Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana, and was finally edited and published by members of the family forming the Dana Genealogical Committee; it contains a most detailed genealogy up to the middle of the twentieth century. In contrast, The Dana Saga has fewer than seventy pages, and was evidently prepared as a preliminary pamphlet while Henry Dana was working on the materials left by his aunt. Besides these, a Memoranda of Some of the Descendants of Richard Dana, compiled by John Jay Dana (1811-1899), was published at Boston in 1865;7 and the Personal Papers of Elizabeth Dana have been published by the National Parks Service in 2001.8

In her Introduction to The Dana Family, Elizabeth Ellery Dana discusses the possible origins of the family, and concludes that the only likely connection is with Manchester in England, where a Richard Dana was baptised on 31 October 1617. His name is not mentioned again in English records, and it is probable this is the same person as first appears at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the early 1640s. Elizabeth Ellery notes that she has explored the possibility of a French origin, including any connection to the Huguenot exile community in England, but can find no references; and she dismisses the theory of migration from Italy. Amongst other arguments against a non-English origin, Richard Dana held substantial official positions in Massachusetts, and it is most unlikely that a foreigner would have received such appointments in a British colony. The Dana Family notes also that Richard Dana was the only person of that surname to come to America for the next two hundred years, and he is the sole ancestor of the main family.

About 1647 Richard Dana was awarded a land grant on the southern bank of the Charles River. He continued to acquire property, he was an early donor to Harvard College, and he held several important local offices. He died of a fall in 1690.

Richard Dana’s youngest son Daniel (1664-1749) had a successful life without great distinction, but his son Richard (1700-1772), first of the family to attend Harvard, became a magistrate and a leading figure in agitation against the British imperial government. Dressed in full legal regalia, his portrait was painted in 1765 by the celebrated artist John Singleton Copley.9

Richard’s son Francis (1743-1811) had a still more impressive career, on a national scale. A leading lawyer and a close associate of George Washington, he was a member of the Constitutional Congresses of 1777, signed the Articles of Confederation in 1778, and was sent as Ambassador to Russia in 1780; the future President John Adams served as his secretary. Again a member of Congress in 1784 and a leader of the Federalist Party, he later joined the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and was Chief Justice from 1791 to 1806. His son and grandson, Richard Henry Sr and Jr, were both lawyers; Richard Henry Sr (1787- 1879) being also a well-known poet and literary critic, while Richard Henry Jr (1815-1882) was the author of Two Years Before the Mast.

The English coat of arms:

Francis Dana was the third son of Richard: the eldest, Edmund, was born in 1739; a second son, Henry, was born in 1741 but died in 1761. Edmund had graduated from Harvard in 1759, and he left America for England about 1760; it does not appear that he ever returned.

Edmund took holy orders in the Church of England, spent time in London, and then held a series of livings, ending as Vicar of Wroxeter in Shropshire. It was not a notable career, in no way comparable to that of his brother Francis, but he did become well connected: in 1765 he married Helen, daughter of Charles the sixth Baron Kinnaird; her mother Barbara was a daughter of the baronet Sir James Johnstone.10 It was probably through Edmund’s agency that the Dana family first acquired a coat of arms, though it came by a most roundabout route and is of very uncertain authority.

In 1569, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the Alderman William Dane of London became Sheriff of that city and was granted a coat of arms by the English College of Heralds. Originally from Stortford in Hertfordshire, he became a member of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers and was Master of the Company in 1570 and in 1573, in which year he died.

A monument set up by his fellow guildsmen describes the shield: ” Or, a chevron engrailed azure, between three hinds gules;” in modern English, that is a golden/yellow shield, with a blue chevron with scalloped edges, surrounded by three female deer coloured red.11 The effect is gaudy, but Tudor heraldry could look like that:

There is some resemblance to the shield of the Ironmongers Company, which I show alongside. It has a silver shield with a chevron surrounded by three objects, in that case they are described as “gads” (wedge-shaped bars) of steel; the chevron, moreover, has three golden swivels, ironwork designed to assist a chain to flow freely; the supporters are lizards but surely represent salamanders, which operate in extreme heat.12

So William Dane adapted the shield of his Company but created several points of difference, reversing the colours and even varying the edge of the chevron. It is important to note, however, that the animals on his shield were hinds – female deer – and not stags. The badge of Sir Christopher Hatton (1540-1591), future Lord Chancellor and already a favourite of Queen Elizabeth, was a hind, and it is probable that William Dane was showing respect to a current or potential patron. In similar fashion, when Sir Francis Drake sailed around the world from 1577 to 1580 he named his ship Golden Hind.

William Dane was survived by his wife Margaret nee Kempe, but the couple had only one son, who died young, probably before his father, so there was no-one to inherit the coat of arms.

There is no reason to believe there was any family connection between William Dane of Hertfordshire and London and the Dana family, probably from Manchester, two hundred years later; not even the name is the same, and it is unlikely that the final e was ever sounded. For some reason or other, however, members of the Dana family in the latter eighteenth century persuaded themselves that the shield of William Dane could reasonably be used for their own insignia.13

The person responsible for the appropriation was most probably the Reverend Edmund Dana. There is no way to tell how he found out about the grant of arms in 1569, but after his arrival in England in the early 1760s he would have had opportunity to make enquiries, and he may have simply asked at the College of Heralds when he was in London.

One particular reason for Edmund Dana to seek a form of arms would be his marriage to Helen Kinnaird in 1765. Regardless of personal affection, as the daughter of a lord she and her family could expect her to marry a gentleman of coat armour, and Edmund might well have found it desirable to acquire such insignia; since we are told that the couple were wed at Leith in Scotland, where heraldry is governed by Lord Lyon King at Arms independent of the English establishment, there were probably no questions asked.

This being done – and we know that Edmund Dana’s family in England used a version of the shield of William Dane14 – it is not difficult to accept that he advised his father and his brother Francis of the newly-claimed arms. Their use was never registered by the English College of Heralds and so was formally unlawful in that country, and few American colonists had been granted arms. Edmund Dana was evidently not concerned, however, and his father Richard and brother Francis were certainly not deterred; they appear to have been making use of the insignia by the mid-1760s.

The arms in America: Richard Dana’s portrait frame and Francis Dana’s bookplate:

We have noted that Richard Dana had his portrait painted by John Singleton Copley in 1765. The portrait survives and is presented within a gilded frame, probably of the same date or very close to it, which has at the top a shield and a crest. The picture and frame are privately owned by a member of the family, but it was lent for an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York during 1992, and a descriptive catalogue was published as American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament.15 Unfortunately, though there is a large photograph of the portrait and its ornate frame, the design at the top does not come out well and cannot be reproduced here. The charges can nonetheless be identified as a blue chevron and three animals, and the crest is a walking fox. In contradiction to the entry in Bolton’s Armory, however, it is clear that the background of the shield is gold. It is not possible to ascertain whether there is a motto.

About the same time Richard Dana’s son Francis had a bookplate prepared, also showing a coat of arms. The work was engraved by the distinguished silversmith Nathaniel Hurd, and a copy appears facing page 30 of The Dana Saga. This contains the full achievement, and the illustration has a commentary by the author Henry Dana, including a blazon [description] of the whole achievement: “Argent, a chevron engrailed azure, between three stags trippant gules.” The crest is a fox, and the motto is Cavendo tutus: Safe [tutus] by being cautious [cavendo].

Henry Dana adds that “This was the Coat-of-Arms granted in 1569 to John Dana [sic, not William Dane], from whom Francis Dana at one time imagined he was descended.”

In fact, despite Henry Dana’s kindly note, there is no reason to believe that Francis Dana was under any illusions about the descent, and there are a number of problems and doubts about the description of the shield:

Firstly, though engraved metal can have no direct colouring, colour can be indicated by a system of “hatching:” whereas argent or silver is plain, dots are used to show or, the heraldic term for gold, Downward lines indicate gules red, sideways show azure blue, and the lines for vert green are diagonal from top left to bottom right. In the illustration, therefore, dots are discernable on the background of the shield, and so it should in fact be described as or gold, not as argent silver; that is the way William Dana had it in 1569.

Second, while the chevron is indeed engrailed, the hatching is unclear. It is possible that the chevron is red rather than blue, a variation from William Dana’s, but more probable that Francis followed the some blue colour scheme as on the frame of his father’s portraits.

Thirdly, however, though the blazon given by Henry Dana describes the animals as stags, they do not appear to have horns, and are more likely to be the original hinds of William Dana. In that regard, the design proposed by Arms and Badges above, with deer surrounding a red chevron, is comparatively close, but the animals are female without horns, not stags with antlers, and the background of the shield is gold and not silver.

Bolton’s American Armory, as discussed in the Introduction, says that Francis Dana’s son Richard Henry Sr had a bookplate with a gold shield but with unicorns instead of deer. I suspect this is a misreading of the design, and that in fact the animals were correctly hinds.

We may note also that, writing in the 1860s, J J Dana states at page 6 of his Memoranda that “The first known proofs of [the shield’s use are soon after the Revolutionary War.” The evidence of Richard Dana’s portrait frame and the bookplate of Francis Dana would indicate that he is mistaken.

In general, while shields are supposed to be more or less permanently attached to a particular family, subject to slight variations to identify individuals or cadet branches, crests can be changed more readily and mottos can be adopted almost at will. Most families, however, maintain the same tradition from one generation to the next.

The motto adopted by Richard and Francis is shared with other families, sometimes accompanied by the crest or charge of a snake, though it is also used by the Dukes of Devonshire, whose surname is Cavendish which goes quite well with cavendo. For the Danas, though the crest of the fox has no earlier authority, it makes a nice combination with the motto: female deer should be careful when there are foxes about.

The Dana arms in England and Australia: Charlotte Frances Dana’s box:

When I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during September 1999, my aunt Nancy Movius nee Champion de Crespigny showed me a small camphorwood box with a silver plaque engraved with a shield and a motto. The box is a family heirloom which has since been passed to Nancy Movius’ grand-daughter, but at that time its provenance was not known, and she asked me to try to find out what the shield related to and where the box might have come from. I was able to offer her some conclusions, which I have now been able to confirm.

The shield and motto on the plaque are accompanied by neither crest nor supporters, while the smaller figures on the shield are difficult to make out and their colours cannot be identified. In heraldic terms, however, the shield would be blazoned:

Per pale:
dexter: quarterly, 1 and 4, vert an eagle displayed; 2 and 3, argent a lion rampant; sinister: or, a chevron engrailed gules between three hinds.

Translated from the formal language, we have a shield divided in two down the middle. The left-hand part of the shield is again divided into four parts, of which both the top left and bottom right have a green background with a spread-winged eagle; while the top right and bottom left have a white or silver background with a lion rampant.

The motto below the shield is in English: “In God Alone I Trust.”

From the discussion above, we know that the right-hand half is a version of the Dana shield, based upon that of William Dane, but with one significant difference both from William Dane’s shield and from that used by Richard and Francis Dana in America: whereas the background is or gold, and the three animals are female deer, the chevron is engraved with vertical hatching, indicating gules red. It appears that Edmund Dana in England varied William Dane’s shield, but his father and his brother preferred to keep the original colours.

The left-hand half of the shield is not difficult to identify. There are several books which index the charges on shields and the family or organisation which holds them, and one of the most comprehensive is Papworth’s Ordinary of British Armorials, compiled in the nineteenth century and revised in the mid-twentieth.16 This work ascribes the arms of an eagle on a green ground quartered with a lion rampant on a silver ground to Sherborne “of the Tower of London.” Papworth, moreover, describes the lions as vert green and the eagles as argent white/silver, so each quarter reverses the colours of its neighbour.17

The reference to the Tower is unusual: most families are described as coming from a particular county and not from a building, even a royal one. Shaw’s Knights of England, however, records that Edward Sherburne, clerk of Ordnance at the Tower, was created a knight bachelor in January 1682 (the beginning of 1683 by modern calculation – New Year at that time was in March).18 These are presumably the arms that he bore and that his descendants continued to hold, though they may have had no further connection to the Tower.

This shield, moreover, is close to that recorded for the Sherborne family of Lancashire, the main difference being that the (original?) Lancashire branch has the quarters in opposite order, so the lion is in the first and fourth, and the eagle in the second and third. Burke’s Encyclopedia of Heraldry also lists the two families, but adds that the crest of the Lancashire family is a unicorn head, silver, with a horn of gold, while Sherborne of the Tower of London has a green lion rampant guardant [i.e. looking towards the viewer].19

A shield divided into two relates to a married man whose wife has brothers. When a woman marries, her husband is entitled to “impale” the arms of his father-in-law. If, however, the wife has no brothers, she is a “heraldic heiress:” her husband places her family arms on a small shield in the middle of his own, and their descendants can show the combined arms as “quarterings” thereafter.

On such a shield, the arms on the left hand side are those of the husband’s family and those on the right the wife’s. [Left and right in this case are described as from the observer’s point of view, but in heraldry they are considered from that of the wearer: hence dexter [Latin: right] is on the observer’s left, but is a position of greater honour than sinister [left] which is on the observer’s right.]

So the small shield engraved on the box relates to a married couple, the husband being a man of the Sherborne surname and the wife being born Dana. Fortunately it is comparatively easy to identify them.

The genealogy in The Dana Family lists the children of the Reverend Edmund Dana.20 The first three were daughters: Frances Johnstone, who was born on 8 May 1766 and died on 7 May 1767; Elizabeth Caroline (1767-1844) who had many children; and Frances Johnstone, born on 3 September 1768 and named after her dead sister – a common custom of the time.21 In 1793 this second Frances Johnstone Dana married Joseph Sherburne [or Sherborne], and the union was symbolised by the shield which combined their families’ arms.

I have in my possession a family Bible, which came to me from my grandfather Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny. An inscription in the front describes how it was passed to him by the will of his grandmother Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny nee Dana (1820- 1904). The inscription before that reads:

The Gift of Mrs Frances Johnstone Sherborne to her niece and God daughter Charlotte Frances Dana by her will – 

Charlotte Frances Champion Crespigny nee Dana was eighth child of William Pulteney Dana (1776-1861), who was born at Wroxeter as the seventh child and second son of the Reverend Edmund Dana. Frances Johnstone Sherborne nee Dana, William Pulteney’s elder sister, was the aunt of Charlotte Frances and also her godmother.

In order for the box to come into the possession of my aunt Nancy Movius, daughter of Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny, it must have been owned by her great- grandmother Charlotte Frances nee Dana, who came to Australia with her husband Philip Robert Champion Crespigny in 1852. Like the Bible, it was presumably a gift, and the date when it was given may be indicated by the motto on the plaque: “In God Alone I Trust.” The motto is not associated with either the Sherborne or the Dana families,22 but it would be most suitable for a present from a godmother, and I believe the box may have been given to the infant Charlotte Frances at the time of her christening in 1820.

In any event, the box and its plaque demonstrate that the Dana family in England used the shield with a red chevron between three hinds on a gold background. Two of Charlotte Frances’ brothers, Henry Edmund Pulteney Dana (1817-1852) and William Augustus Dana (1826-1866), also came to Australia: Henry became the founder and head of the Native Police Corps – armed Aborigines mounted on horses – and William was second in command; there are still members of the family in Australia.23

So the shield of the Dana family in England and Australia, descended from the Reverend Edmund, was gold with a red chevron and three red hinds, while the family in America, descended from Edmund’s father Richard and his younger brother Francis, followed the original sixteenth-century pattern borne by William Dane, with a blue chevron. It is probable that both sides of the family used the crest of a fox and the motto Cavendo tutus.

In footnote 57 on page 29 of The Dana Saga, Henry Dana remarks that Elizabeth Ellery Dana disapproved of any claim to heraldic honours: “the Dana family, with their humble origin, had no right to bear this Coat-of-Arms.” Henry supports her opinion, and particularly objects to the fox crest and to the motto: “The Danas were rarely safe and never cautious.” Richard, Francis and their kinfolk, however, were and are entitled to disagree.

The other Dana arms:

We have noted in the Introduction above that Bolton’s American Armory lists two other sets of arms used by members of the Dana family, both based on bookplates: Charles L[oomis] Dana had a shield with a bend bearing three chevrons; no colours are given, but the footnote to page 29 of The Dana Saga describes the shield as black, with a white bend and three green chevrons: this is the same as that presented by the website of Heraldry WS.

Charles A[nderson] Dana had a shield divided horizontally with six bars, with three lions rampant wearing crowns, but there is no source for any of the colours; presumably the bookplate did not provide any hatchings. I have provided random colouring in order to show the nature of the background and the charges.

Bolton’s American Armory has the crest as an ox’s head cabossed (facing the viewer); it is described by Washbourne as a bull’s head affrontée, which is the same design. Again, no colour is given, and there is no reference to a motto.24

In his footnote to page 29 of The Dana Saga, following his unfavourable view of the arms claimed by Richard and Francis Dana, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana remarks that the black shield with a white bend and three green chevrons, accompanied by the crest of a bull’s head crest “is, if possible, even more spurious.” He makes no comment about the shield with bars and three crowned lions rampant, but would no doubt have been even more scathing.

His strictures, however, are not entirely justified. It is clear from Bolton’s American Armory that the two achievements were used, and by different branches of the family:

  • While Richard Dana (1700-1772) and Francis were the son and grandson of Daniel (1664-1749), who was the seventh and youngest son of Richard (1617-1690), founder of the family in America;
  • Charles Loomis Dana was descended from Caleb (1697-1769), also a son of Daniel but elder brother of the second Richard;
  • and Charles Anderson Dana was descended from Benjamin (1659/60-1738), sixth son of the first Richard.

By the early twentieth century, therefore, when Charles Loomis Dana (1852-1935) and Charles Anderson Dana (1881-1975) were making use of their bookplates, the connection was very distant. Strictly speaking, they should perhaps have used some variant of the earlier coat of arms, but given the distance of the relationship and the lapse of time it was reasonable for them to have chosen insignia of their own, and their descendants are free to follow their models.

Finally, we may note once more that while Bolton’s American Armory lists shields and arms for the Dana family, neither Papworth’s Ordinary nor Burke’s Encyclopaedia record any of the forms. Those latter compilations deal only with the heraldry of Britain, where the lineage of William Dane was long extinct; though members of the Dana family made use of his chevron and hinds in England and elsewhere, they never sought to register them.

Conclusion:

There are three sets of arms which can be ascribed to one branch or another of the Dana family. Those connected to Charles Anderson Dana, in the line of Benjamin the sixth son of the found Richard Dana, may like to use the shield with six bars and three crowned lions – and may presumably choose whichever combination of colours seems appropriate.

For those related to Charles Loomis Dana, descended from Caleb son of Daniel and grandson of the first Richard, there is his black shield with a white bend and three green chevrons.

And those of the second Richard’s lineage can claim the tradition of a chevron on a gold shield, with three red hinds or does; the colour of the chevron may vary between blue, for members of the family in the United States, to red for those of English or Australian background.

So there is a broad choice, and individuals may vary colours and shapes to distinguish themselves from their cousins. One notable point, however, is that of the designs found on internet websites, only that shown by Heraldry WS has actually been used by a noted member of the family. The version provided by Arms and Badges has some relation to the initial accession by Richard, Edmund and Francis Dana, taken from the shield of William Dane, but is mistaken as to colour and has stags rather than hinds. All others must be regarded as fictitious and without authority.

……….

Notes:
 
1. John Burke and John Bernard Burke, Encyclopaedia of Heraldry or General Armory of England, Scotland and Ireland, comprising a registry of all armorial bearings from the earliest to the present time, including the late grants by the College of Arms, London 1844. ↩
2. Charles Knowles Bolton, Bolton’s American Armory: a record of coats of arms which have been of use within the present bounds of the United States, first published Boston 1927 with later editions; most recently revised by Jina Bolton, The Genealogical Publishing Company, 2009, and available on the internet at http://books.google.com.au/books?id=YH5LJSlAsoUC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q= Dana &f=false; accessed May 2014. The Dana arms are described on page 45. ↩
3. The colours of the shield and of the chevron are discussed further below. ↩
4. The suggested origins are discussed in similar terms in a footnote at page 2 of The Dana Saga as below. ↩
5. At http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89062874821;view=1up;seq=11; accessed May 2014. Both The Dana Saga and The Dana Family in America, below, have been scanned from a copy held by the University of Wisconsin. ↩
6. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89062875265;view=1up;seq=7; accessed May 2014. ↩
7. E.g. https://archive.org/stream/memorandaofsomeo1865dana/memorandaofsomeo1865dana_djvu.txt; accessed May 2014. ↩
8. http://www.nps.gov/long/historyculture/upload/EED%20Finding%20Aid.pdf; accessed May 2014. ↩
9. The picture – and notably its frame – are discussed further below. ↩
10. Details of the marriage and immediate descent of Edmund Dana appear as Genealogy item 581 at pages 484 to 486 of The Dana Family in America. Edmund and Helen’s first three children, all daughters, were born in London between 1766 and 1768: see below. Page 20 of The Dana Saga tells how in April 1775, just before the outbreak of fighting at Concord and Lexington, Francis Dana was sent as an envoy to England with letters to Benjamin Franklin. In fact Franklin returned to America early in May of that year; their ships probably passed one another in mid-Atlantic. It is also said that while he was in England, Francis sought to persuade his brother’s connections to sympathy with the colonists’ cause; we are not told whether he had any notable effect. ↩
11. See http://www.forgottenbooks.org/readbook_text/Some_ Account_ of_ the_ Worshipful_ Company_ of_ Ironmongers_1000832814/561; accessed May 2014. ↩
12. John Bromley and Heather Child, The Armorial Bearings of the Guilds of London, London 1960, 148-151, with plate facing 134. ↩
13. At pages 6 and 7 of his Memoranda, J J Dana expresses his doubts on the connection to William Dane, and confirms that there is no evidence the name Dana has any connection that that of Dane, and that it has always been a word of two syllables. ↩
14. On the use of arms by Edmund Dana’s family, see the account of the camphorwood box below. ↩
15. Morrison H. Heckscher, American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament, New York 1992; accessed May 2014 at http://books.google.com.au/books?id=0Iqxqguoy BkC&print sec = frontcover&redir_esc= y#v =onepage&q&f=false. The portrait and its frame are illustrated at page 141, with discussion at 142. ↩
16. John Woody Papworth, An Alphabetical Dictionary of Coats of Arms belonging to Families in Great Britain and Ireland: forming an extensive ordinary of British armorials; edited from page 696 by Alfred W. Morant; reprinted from the original 1874 edition with introductions by G D Squibb and A R Wagner, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore 1965. ↩
17. Papworth, page 304. The surname appears in different texts as Sherborne, Sherburne and Sherbourne. There is no doubt, however, that it is the same family. ↩
18. William A Shaw, The Knights of England: a complete record from the earliest time to the present day of the knights of all the orders of chivalry in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of knights bachelors; incorporating a complete list of knights bachelors dubbed in Ireland, compiled by G. D. Burtchaell, London 1906, volume II, page 258. ↩
19. John Burke and John Bernard Burke, Encyclopaedia of Heraldry, London 1844. ↩
20. The Dana Family, page 485. ↩
21. Johnstone was the maiden name of Helen nee Kinnaird’s mother, the child’s grandmother. ↩
22. See, for example, Henry Washbourne, The Book of Family Crests, London 1882, which includes “A Dictionary of Mottos.” ↩
23. There is an entry for Henry Edward Pulteney Dana compiled by Marilynn I. Norman in The Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra 1966: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dana-henry-edward-pulteney-1952/text2327; accessed May 2014. The year of his birth is given as 1820, but The Dana Family has 1817, which would be correct: Charlotte Frances was born in March 1820, and she was not Henry’s twin. Further details are provided by Marie Hansen Fels, Good Men and True: the Aboriginal police of the Port Phillip district 1837-1853, Melbourne University Press 1988; pages 44-49 discuss the family background. ↩
24. Washbourne, Family Crests, volume I, page 131. ↩
25. This is the shield presented by Heraldry WS; the present design is taken from that website at http://www.heraldry.ws/html/dana.html; accessed May 2014. ↩

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