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| The flag of Weld Boat Club at Harvard Rendered by Chad Krouse, 2025 |
My dry spell for discovering armorial designs created by Pierre de Chaignon la Rose (1872-1941) just ended, signaling what should become a great 2025. While editing and double-checking references for an article on la Rose I wrote for the forthcoming publication on the proceedings of the 36th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences, I literally stumbled upon something I have never seen before, the flag of Weld Boat Club at Harvard.
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| La Rose's design for Weld Boat Club source: Harvard Illustrated Magazine (1899), 16. Click to enlarge |
The inaugural edition of Harvard Illustrated Magazine, published in October 1899, showcases la Rose's flag designed for Weld Boat Club. Named for Harvard alumnus and philanthropist George Walker Weld (1840-1905), the club's boathouse was constructed along the Charles River in 1906 (Hodge, 2022). I believe Weld left this gift in his estate following his death in 1905.
Why is this discovery important?
La Rose's flag for Weld now represents his first known heraldic design in my growing data set containing more than 260 works of corporate heraldry he produced. Moreover, the boat club's flag now becomes la Rose's first example to showcase his gift of combining history, unification, and differencing into a design of arms rendered in the simplest form possible.
I can assure anyone on the above point; the ability to accomplish these three tasks in a singular design successfully and simply, is truly a gift not widely distributed among heraldic designers.
Previously, data suggested that la Rose's armorial designs for two social clubs at Harvard--Signet Society and The Digamma (also nicknamed The Fox Club)--produced around 1902 were tied for the honor of being his earliest known work in the space of corporate heraldry.
.png "Coat of Arms of the Signet Society Harvard") |
| Arms of the Signet Society Rendered by Chad Krouse, 2024 |
Signet Society's club house on Dunster Street in Cambridge prominently features la Rose's creation of the society's arms carved into the building's portico. La Rose's design for the arms of the Signet Society is blazoned: "Arms: Gules, a signet ring or, surrounded by seven bees of the same marked with sable. Crest: From a fillet or and sable, a dexter forearm issuing, clothed in a sable sleeve with white cuff. The hand proper holding an open book with two clasps and edges or, across the pages of which is inscribed Veritas" (Signet Society, 1903, II).
Moreover, la Rose's use of letters as heraldic charges represents a significant outlier in the data--repeated in only one other known design, the arms for The Digamma at Harvard produced in 1902.
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| Arms of the Fox Club Rendered by Chad Krouse, 2025 |
The Digamma's armorial ensigns were rendered as a bookplate for the society's library and published in 1915 (Ward, 122). Based on the bookplate's engraved image, with hatching, in Ward (1915), the likely blazon for The Digamm's arms are: Vert, a fox rampant Or holding in dexter paw a capital Digamma Or. The Harvard social club eventually changed its name to the Fox Club, as its told, because the Digamma closely resembles the letter "F."
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| A translation of Weld Boat Club's flag into a coat of arms Rendered by Chad Krouse, 2025 |
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| Click to enlarge infographic Rendered by Chad Krouse, 2025 |
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| Arms of Harvard College Rendered by Chad Krouse, 2025 |
Works Cited
Hammond, Mason. (July 1981). A Harvard armory part I. Harvard Library Bulletin 29(3), 261-297, https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/37364077?show=full
Harvard Illustrated Magazine. (October 1899). "The flag of Weld Boat Club." Harvard Illustrated Monthly 1(1),16
Hodge, Unique. (9 May 2022). "Campus Spotlight: Weld Boathouse," Harvard College, retrieved January 4, 2025
https://college.harvard.edu/about/campus/weld-boathouse.
Signet Society. (1903). The Third Catalogue of The Signet. (Boston, MA: Merrymount Press, 1903), II.
