Arthur Charles Fox-Davies
| Arthur Charles Fox-Davies | |
|---|---|
Fox-Davies' arms, as illustrated in his Complete Guide to Heraldry.
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| Born |
28 February 1871 Bristol, England |
| Died | 19 May 1928 (aged 57) London |
| Occupation | Author |
| Notable work | Complete Guide to Heraldry (1909) |
Arthur Charles Fox-Davies (28 February 1871 – 19 May 1928) was a British author on heraldry. His Complete Guide to Heraldry, published in 1909, has become a standard work on heraldry in England. A barrister by profession, Fox-Davies also worked as a journalist and novelist.
Arthur Charles Davies, known to his friends as Charlie, was born in Bristol, the second son of Thomas Edmond Davies (1839-1908) and his wife Maria Jane Fox, the daughter and co-heiress of Alderman John Fox, JP. Fox-Davies was brought up at Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, where his father worked for the Coalbrookdale Iron Company; his grandfather, Charles Davies of Cardigan in Wales, had been an ironmonger. He added his mother's maiden name to his own by deed poll on his nineteenth birthday in 1890, thereby changing his surname from Davies to Fox-Davies. In 1894, his father took the same course for himself and the rest of the family.
Fox-Davies attended Ackworth School in Yorkshire, but was expelled in 1884 at the age of fourteen, after hitting one of the schoolmasters. He received no further formal education, but was admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1901 and called to the bar in 1906. As a barrister, he practised on the South Eastern Circuit, at the Old Bailey, and at the Surrey and South London Sessions. He also prepared printed cases for peerage cases in the House of Lords.
He married in 1901 Mary Ellen Blanche Crookes (1870-1935), daughter and coheiress of Septimus Wilkinson Crookes and Anne Blanche Harriet Proctor. They had a son, Harley Edmond Fitzroy Fox-Davies (1907-1941), and a daughter, Moyra de Somery Regan. His wife worked as an heraldic artist, often for her husband's publications, under the pseudonym "C. Helard".
Neither the Fox nor the Davies families were armigerous, so in 1905, when Fox-Davies was 34 and already well-advanced in his career as a writer on heraldic and genealogical subjects, he organised posthumous grants of arms to both his grandfathers. The arms granted to Charles Davies were "sable, a demi sun in splendour issuant in base or, a chief dancetée of the last", with, for crest, "a demi dragon rampant gules collared or, holding in the dexter claw a hammer proper"; those granted to John Fox were "per pale argent and gules, three foxes sejant counterchanged", with, for crest, "a demi stag winged gules collared argent". Fox-Davies bore the Davies arms with a crescent for cadency, and intended to quarter them with the Fox arms after his mother's death; but as she outlived him, dying in 1937, this was not possible. He also considered obtaining grants to his wife's families of Crookes and Proctor, which would entitled his children to additional quarterings, but at this point he no longer had the money for further grants of arms. He did obtain, in 1921, the grant of a badge, which consisted of a "crown vallary gules". His motto was Da Fydd, Welsh for "good faith" and a pun on the name Davies.
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