Arms: Azure, between three battleaxes an escallop Or.
SOURCES, NOTES & CREDITS: The background illustration is from “The Heraldic Imagination”, page 21, by Rodney Dennys 1975, and the text is based on, and adapted from, information from various internet articles. The blazon was supplied Mrs. Elizabeth Ann Roads, LVO, Snawdoun Herald in Ordinary, at the Court of the Lord Lyon for which we thank her.
Rodney Onslow Dennys, CVO, OBE, FSA was born 16 July 1911 in Malaya where his father was employed. Rodney didn’t get to see England until he was nine years old. Educated at Canford and the London School of Economics, he started in banking but hated it then in 1937 he joined the Foreign Service and served in intelligence posts in Cairo and Paris. In 1941 he was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps of the British army. For his war work in the Middle East he was appointed an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 1943. He was demobilized as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1946 and continued in intelligence work with the Foreign Office until he resigned in 1957. It is to be noted he was given the honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1949 and relinquished his commission in 1966.
Dennys joined the College of Arms in 1958, his first appointment was as Rouge Croix Pursuivant of Arms in Ordinary in 1961, He worked on the planning of the State Funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, KG, in 1965, then in 1967 he was appointed Somerset Herald of Arms in Ordinary, which office he held to retirement in 1982. In 1969 he was appointed as a Member of the Victorian Order (MVO) for his work on the Investiture of Prince Charles as the Prince of Wales. In 1982 Dennys was then granted the office of Arundel Herald Extraordinary and appointed as a commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO). In 1983 he was appointed High Sheriff of East Sussex. Rodney Dennys died 13 August 1993.
Dennys married in 1944 Elizabeth Greene ( sister to Graham Greene ) they had one son and two daughters: Nick, Amanda and Louise.
Dennys was also an author of two books:
“The Heraldic Imagination”, New York, Clarkson N. Potter, 1975
“Heraldry and the Heralds”, London, Jonathan Cape, 1982
The artwork is a rendition of John Hamilton Gaylor.
Note: the artist specifically used the same shield shape that Rodney Dennys used when he drew his own shield of arms in the B&W line drawing mentioned above in the credits.
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