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The Browns were another family who used the same core arms for two non-
descendant members of the one family. In 2002 I corresponded with the
Lyon Clerk and Keeper of the Records about the second Brown matriculation
and neither of us adequately worked out what was going on here, with my
inadequacy being total. The following sequence was revealed when Roger
Morgan of Epsom found that an earlier Brown had changed his name to
Hamilton and then I found that he had done this through The Lord Lyon.
The second Brown matriculation was for a man who had already changed
his name to Trotter. Read on for the sequence of events:
- 1865: Claud Hamilton Hamilton (formerly Brown)
matriculated quartered arms with, in the second and third quarters
precisely this blazon 'Azure a Chevron chequy Argent and Sable
between three fleurs de lys of the second'. Nowhere in either the
matriculation or the blazon in the Ordinary of Scottish Arms, vol I,
p. 34 does it suggest that these second and third quarters had
anything to do with his family of Brown.
- 1868: William Brown was the husband of the Trotter heiress
to James Trotter of Kettleshiel. The Trotter estates in Surrey were
left to him and his wife provided he and she changed their names to
Trotter and adopted the Trotter arms. This was done by Royal Licence
through the College of Arms which gave him arms of Trotter quartered
by Brown with due differences both on the Trotter quarters and the
Trotter crest. These differences did not apply to the arms of William
Trotter's children because there were blood related to the Trotters
whose name they had adopted.
- 1869: William Brown matriculated by The Lord Lyon the same
arms as he had received a month previously by Royal Licence.
Curiously he matriculated the same arms as in the matriculation for
Claud Hamilton Hamilton (above) four years previously. Further
nowhere did this matriculation refer to the fact that he was by then,
in England at least, William Trotter.
This poses a little problem of what was actually going on here,
summarised as follows:
- In fact Claud Hamilton Hamilton's father was Archibald Brown,
tenth and youngest son of John Brown, merchant of Glasgow.
Archibald's eldest brother was George who was the father of
William Trotter formerly Brown. In his will Claud Hamilton
refers to William Trotter as his cousin and they were first
cousins, both born with the surname of Brown.
- In 1865 Claud Hamilton Hamilton, formerly Brown, has in his
second and third quarter new arms for Brown, though similar to
other arms in the Lyon Register for Brown apart from the
tinctures.
- In 1868, somehow William Brown, subsequently Trotter,
persuaded the College of Arms to use for Brown the second and
third quarterings in the matriculation by Lyon in 1865 for
Claud Hamilton, formerly Brown.
- In 1869 it was thought necessary in Lyon Office to regularise
this with the matriculation of these apparently new arms for William
Brown. The remarkable thing is that there was no due difference.
Further there is the statement in the matriculation that these arms
were to be held also by all other descendants of his father.
- This is shown on a family tree.
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