Coat of arms of East Sussex

A heraldic shield (often erroneously referred to as a coat of arms) has been associated with the historic county of Sussex since the seventeenth century. The device, displaying six martlets or heraldic swallows on a shield, later formed the basis of the flag of Sussex and the armorial bearings granted to the county councils of East and West Sussex.

Although often referred to as a coat of arms, the six gold martlets on a blue shield is not an official Coat of Arms and is more of an Emblem, very much the same as the Yorkshire Rose. Under English Heraldic law a Coat of Arms can not be granted to a county, but only the administrative body. As Sussex hasn't had a single administrative body since 1086, the year of the Domesday Book, the device is an emblem.

The first known recording of this emblem being used to represent the county was in 1611 when cartographer John Speed deployed it to represent the Kingdom of the South Saxons in his atlas The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine. However it seems that Speed was repeating an earlier association between the emblem and the county, rather than being the inventor of the association. It is now firmly regarded that the county emblem originated and derived from the coat of arms of the 14th century Knight of the Shire, Sir John de Radynden.

The seal of the clerk of the peace of the county bore the emblem, as did the badges of the East Sussex Constabulary and the Sussex Yeomanry.

The Local Government Act 1888 introduced administrative counties each governed by an elected county council. Sussex was divided into two administrative counties: With the exception of the county boroughs of Brighton, Hastings and from 1911, Eastbourne, East Sussex County Council administered the rapes of Lewes, Pevensey and Hastings, while West Sussex County Council administered the rapes of Chichester, Arundel and Bramber. Each county council was required to adopt a common seal.

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