ROEDEAN SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, Parktown, Johannesburg, Gauteng.
The arms may be blazoned:
Arms: Per fess azure and vert, on a koppie proper in base a young springbok ewe at gaze proper, charged on the shoulder with a gridiron or and gorged with an earl’s coronet to which is attached by a chain or, a book proper, lying open on the koppie.
Crest: On a wreath azure and vert a secretary bird destroying a snake all proper.
Motto: Honneur aulx dignes.
About the arms:
These arms, an adaptation of the arms of the renowned Roedean School (also a girls’ private school) in Brighton, in the English county of Sussex (today East Sussex), were adopted in 1923 at the instigation of the school council chairman, Archdeadon Cameron.
The blazon as quoted modernises the spelling, rendering “Fesse” as “fess” and “kopje” as “koppie”.
Mr Cameron’s explanation (retaining the outdated spelling but emphasising the key points) reads:
“The young springbok ewe, looking with fearless eyes out into the boundless veldt, represents the girls of the school with the great world before them.
“The principal colours of the shield represent the green veldt and the blue sky. The springbok is tied to the open book by no harsh fetters, but by a golden chain. The gridiron, the traditional symbol of St. Lawrence, and the Earl’s coronet, connect the school with its two Founders.
“The secretary bird on the crest represents the good citizen, who searches out and ruthlessly destroys all that is vicious and harmful.
“One likes to think that the pun in the motto was entirely spontaneous.”
The motto, which is identical to the motto of the Brighton school, translates as: “Honour with dignity.”
In the arms of the English school, the animal is a young roe deer doe and the hill is dotted with flowers as one might expect in an English garden.
The Johannesburg school’s animal is the springbok, Antidorcas marsupialis, which became a national symbol for South Africa as far back as 1906, but which since 1994 has fallen out of favour.
The bird is a specimen of Sagittarius serpentarius, named in Latin for its ferocity in attacking snakes. The secretary bird can also be seen in the arms adopted by South Africa in 2000. The snake, however, is not identified as to either species or general type. However, in the colour illustration it appears as brown, banded in black, and so resembles a puffadder, Bitis arietans.
The object “engorging” the doe’s neck in the English school’s arms is not a coronet, but merely a metal ring. The coronet in the South African version alludes to Miss Katherine Earl, one of the Johannesburg school’s two founders.
The grid – which recalls the martyrdom of St Lawrence (Laurentius, died in Rome in AD 258), who, according to tradition, was roasted on a grid – is not clearly drawn in the colour illustration, but in the black-and-white illustration provided by the school, and in the illustration (also black-and-white) of the Brighton school’s arms, the device on the shoulder is clearly a grid.
It is said by the Latin poet Prudentius and by Bishop St Ambrose of Milan that when Lawrence was near death’s door, he still had the good humour to remark to his tormentors: “I am cooked on that side; turn me over, and eat.”
However it is possible that Lawrence was merely beheaded. It is nonetheless reported that his death resulted in mass conversions to Christianity right across Rome, including those of several senators who witnessed his execution.
The grid symbolises Miss Theresa Lawrence, co-founder with Miss Earl. The school website does not make clear the relationship between Theresa and the three Misses Lawrence who founded the Brighton school.
The koppie is shown as being brown and sere, as the Highveld can often be in the winter drought. (The school spells this word in the old-fashioned Dutch way as kopje.)
The colours of the arms are irregular in that they flout the “rule of tincture”, a convention in heraldry that requires tinctures (colours like blue, green and red) to contrast with metals (gold/yellow and silver/white). The arms are nonetheless clear and pleasing, and it is to be hoped that the Bureau of Heraldry would see fit to register them.
About the school:
The school website includes this brief history of the institution:
“Following the founding of Roedean in Brighton, England in 1885 by Penelope, Dorothy and Millicent Lawrence, it was decided to start a school for young ladies in the colonies. Theresa Lawrence and her friend Katherine Margaret Earl set sail for South Africa on the Walmer Castle in 1902.
“They opened a sister school in Jeppestown in 1903 with 22 pupils and in 1904 moved to the Parktown kopje near Sunnyside, the residence of Lord Milner, and Hohenheim, the home of Sir Percy Fitzpatrick.
“Sir Herbert Baker designed the original St Ursula’s building. Over the years additions were made with the building of the Council Block (1913), St Agnes’ (1917), St Katherine’s, the Junior School (1921) and the chapel (1934).
“The Le Maître, Raikes, Joris, Dorothea Campbell, Hersov and Sumner blocks commemorate the names of those people significant in the school’s history. More recently (1989) St Margaret’s Block was built with eight classrooms for the junior primary pupils.
“Throughout the school the architects have retained the Herbert Baker features with arches, colonnades, belltowers and courtyards.
“Through the generations the 10 ha, with the indigenous kopje on which the school is situated, has grown into the present cluster of buildings, trees, playing fields and beautifully landscaped gardens.”
Afrikaanse blasoen:
Die wapen mag in Afrikaans so geblasoeneer word:
Wapen: Gesny van blou en groen, op ’n koppie in sy natuurlike kleure in die skildbasis, ’n jong kykende springbokooi in haar natuurlike kleure, met op die skouer ’n rooster van goud, en met ’n graaflike kroon om die nek, waarvan daar ’n goue ketting hang met, aan die einde, ’n oop boek in sy natuurlike kleure wat op die koppie lę.
Helmteken: Op ’n wrong van blou en groen, ’n sekretarisvoël wat ’n slang vernietig, alles in die natuurlike kleure.
Leuse: Honneur aulx dignes.
Die leuse vertaal as: “Eer en eerbaarheid.”
