MacDonald, Wm. Rae

William Rae MacDonald, F.F.A.(1843-1923)

Arms: Quarterly argent and or, 1st a lion rampant gules, 2nd a dexter hand fessways couped at the wrist proper holding a cross crosslet fitchy gules, 3rd a lymphad oars crossed in saltire sable, 4th a salmon naiant proper, overall on a fess gules a cushion or

SOURCE, NOTES & CREDITS: Source for blazon: “Public Register of All Arms and Bearings in Scotland”, see Sir J.B. Paul’s “Ordinary”, 2nd ed. of 1903, entry # 1689 p.113-114 and entry # 3956, page 267 dating to 1878.

MacDonald was born in 1843, a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries, Edinburgh, he was the author of “Scottish Armorial Seals, Edinburgh 1904, appointed Carrick Pursuivant in 1898 and Albany Herald in 1909, he was an early collaborator, until his death in 1923, of John Horne Stevenson, Marchmont Herald, author of his own massive three volume opus “Scottish Seals”. Mac was an assiduous collector of cast copies of antique Scottish armorial seals, some 5600 or so of these are yet extant and kept secure in the Office of the Lord Lyon.

We have viewed MacDonald’s copy of “Heraldic Exhibition Edinburgh MDCCCXCI” with both his bookplate within ( also to be seen on page 110 of “Scottish Bookplates” by Brian North Lee & Ilay Campbell, The Bookplate Society, London 2006.) and with the whole of the front leather cover hand carved & embossed with an image of a pre-1707 “Scottish Herald” holding a caduceus in his right hand and in his left a shield with Mac’s own arms upon it. Additionally, we have learned from Charles Burnett, Esq., formerly Ross Herald Extraordinary, that the book was bound by his own wife, Annie Smith Johnston, a well known Arts and Crafts Scottish bookbinder, and one of the few examples of her work known to yet exist, … obviously his own verra cherished copy !

The artwork is a rendering by John Hamilton Gaylor

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