- 1803: The first coat of arms is found for James Trotter of Kettleshiel and was
'Argent a Crescent Gules, on a chief indented Azure three mullets pierced of the field'.
No difference marks are to be found, he was the armorial head of the family even though
none of the subsequent Scottish matriculants of this family were descended from him.
- 1803: In the same year James' younger brother John also matriculated arms; they
were different in having an engrailed chief, not an indented one.
- 1868: James had two sons and two daughters, of whom only one, the third child
and elder daughter, had any issue though she died aged 28 in 1812 and it was not until
1868 that the last of her three siblings died. By this time the family had lived in
London and the Home Counties for nearly 150 years, so the issues of what to do next
were handled by the English College of Arms, not by The Lord Lyon.
- 1825: In the meantime, the descendants of James Trotter's uncle, Archibald Trotter
had started to take up arms. Archibald's youngest son Coutts had been made a
baronet and decided he needed arms to go with this (he might even have been
pressured by a King of Arms or two to do just that). Sir Coutts got the Lord
Lyon to deal with it. At this stage it must be realised that Coutts was not a
descendant of the first Trotter armiger of Kettleshiel: the common ancestor
between him and his cousin James of Kettleshiel was their grandfather, one
Alexander. In fact Coutts' arms were different in two ways from his cousin's.
The Trotter part was identical. The first difference was the addition of a
quartering for his heiress mother, Jean Mowbray. The second difference,
referred in the matriculation as the 'due difference' was a bordure ermine
around the four quarters. Finally it was allowed that Coutts' elder
brothers and their issue may use the same total coat but with further due
differences added. Fairly remarkably none of his brother's lines did anything
themselves.
- 1906: Louisa Kathleen Haldane became a heraldic heiress on the death
that year of her father Coutts Trotter, a great-nephew of the above baronet.
She and her husband then arranged for a matriculation of his arms with an
escutcheon of Pretence of her Trotter arms. The arms in pretence were those
matriculated to her gt-gt-uncle Sir Coutts Trotter in 1825 but with a bordure
Gules around that escutcheon. So this bordure must have been the due difference
that her gt-grandfather Alexander Trotter, brother to Sir Coutts, might have
used if he had matriculated arms.
- 1924: Louisa's first cousin, also a descendant of this
Alexander, matriculated arms. He did not follow his cousin's example
of perpetuating the arms of Sir Coutts Trotter as he wished to quarter
his mother's arms, she being the heiress daughter of a Peer of The Realm.
The arms were thus Trotter of Kettleshiel quartered by Abercromby of
Colinton. As far as I can discover, there are no Abercromby arms of this
blazon previously granted either by Lyon or the College of Arms in England;
Lyon then, from the Scottish Ordinary of Arms, Vol 2, p. 147 then formally
created these Abercromby of Colinton Arms for this quatering with Trotter
for Alexander Abercromby Trotter. The only difference mark was on the
Abercromby quarters of a crescent Gules and it is possible that this
was more to make a difference with the arms then born by the Peerage
family of Abercromby of Aboukir and Tullibody. If this last is
correct, the only difference of this coat of Trotter of Colinton is
the addition of the quartering with Abercromby.
- 1958: Richard Durant Trotter, the heir male of the third
brother, John Trotter FRS, of Sir Coutts Trotter (above) matriculated
his arms as Trotter of Kettleshiel quartered by Moubray and within an
overall border indented Argent. This follows the matriculation to
Sir Coutts of 1825 and shows that the border indented Argent was the
due distinction; no due difference is specified in the blazon in the
Scottish Ordinary of Arms Vol 2, pp. 101 and 257. (The pages for
this matriculation are not available on the Scotland's People web
site, so I may yet seek to obtain a copy direct from the Lyon
Office.)
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