Toffs

Armorial Families

Arthur Charles Fox-Davies' Armorial Families (S&N £19.95) is an alphabetic listing of british families, with their various coats of arms and mottoes in 1902. It also has a brief biography of the head of the family, including parentage, spouse or spouses and children, and the name of the gentlemen's club to which the individual belonged, so there is more in the book than a simple list of armorial bearings. Not all the coats of arms are illustrated, so a knowledge of how they are described in heraldry may be required to match the description with something passed down in the family.