I have acquired a few books over a not yet long life and for a year or three have been thinking they need to be bookplated, particularly those on family matters. The definition of our family history is very much tied up with both heraldry and the heiresses that our forbears married so this has slowly led me to appreciate the bookplate designed by my grandfather, a strong heraldry and genealogy enthusiast and whose design must have been of his deliberate choice, including as it does the quartered arms of the principal heiresses his forbears had married. His design is shown above and the details are here.

What my grandfather was not aware of was that he too had married an heiress, but she did not become such until her last brother, like his elders ones also died unmarried and without children - and by then my grandfather had been six foot under for nearly fifty years. By then she too had been six foot under but only for a little under thirty years. My grandmother brought with her at least three arms, Trotter new, Brown and Trotter old.

To my grandfather's six displayed quarterings, I would thus like to add three more, Trotter new and Trotter old and in addition, perhaps because everyone else forgot about them, Gobert, an heiress of a late Barrington marriage, making a symmetrical total of nine quarterings.

As for the outline design, I like the odour of an equestrian seal that is clear in my grandfather's plate; this should be continued.

You can see the details of the proposed blazons here.

I am interested in eventually having a bookplate made in line with the above. All communications from anyone will be appreciated, and most particularly from any designer who would like to work on such a plate.