| Repository | Cheshire Record Office |
| Level | Item |
| Reference | DDS 14/1 |
| Title | Letter from Albert le Woods, Lancaster Herald, to the Rev. F. Downes Panter |
| Date | 2 Aug 1855 |
| Description | Heralds College London
Transcript;-
Dear Sir
I have succeeded at last in obtaining a copy of your Mother's Will and by tomorrows post I hope to send you the necessary petition for your Signature. I will so word the prayer as to enable me to add the Arms of Panter in the event of your deciding to have them quarterly with those of Downes.
Since I received your packet on Monday I have caused a careful search to be made among the records of the College without finding any entry or registration of Arms to your family; but on the contrary disproved that you have a right to the Arms and Crest used by you for that name inasmuch as I find the identical Arms and Crest granted in 1645 to Humphrey Painter Sergeant Surgeon to the King --- therefore you connot have the Arms sanctioned but by a new registration. You must either pray for the Arms of Downes only or have a Patent of Arms for the name of Panter to your Father and his descendants -- the expence of which would be £76. 10. 0. I think it right for me to mention that unless Arms for Panter are established we cannot allow your right to quarter the Arms of Downes with the several quarterings which that family my introduce -- for instance the Coats of Shrigley, Ashton &c. You must therefore decide whether your son shall pray for the Arms of Downes only or whether you will incur the additional expence.
With regard to the pedigree I shall require documentary evidence of the continuation (from Edward Downes of Worth who was aged 33 in 1663) such as Wills, family deeds, parish registers, Monumental Inscriptions, entries in family Bibles and the such like in short the same evidence you would be called upon to produce in a Court of Law on a claim to an Estate. If you have an abstract of the title when your Uncle sold Shrigley it would afford much of the desired information. If you have any Marriage Settlement of the parties let me have them together with such family papers as you possess relative to the family since the year 1663 when the last entry occurs in our books. You should procure extracts of all the entries that occur in the Registers of Shrigley and Worth (or the parish in which they are situated) of the Downes family from 1660 together with attested copies of the inscriptions on any monument, headstones that may occur to the family in the church or church yard there or elsewhere. I perceive several of the persons named in the pedigree you left with me are stated to be buried at Prestbury and others at Shrigley. If the Prestbury Registers have not been examined it should be done. If you will let me have all the papers deeds &c you can find touching the pedigree since the period above mentioned, I will look them over and see how far they go to prove the descent and then let you know what further information is required. This will not delay the application to the Crown for the Change of Name as the exemplification of the Arms is not carried out until it has been gazetted.
I will write again tomorrow -- Excuse this hurried letters.
I remain/Dear Sir/Your very faithfully/Albert le Woods/Lancaster Herald.
To/The Revd. F. Downes Panter.
Mark: None. |
| Physical Description | Paper: 1 sheet folded, 4 pp. 8" wide by 10", written pp.1, 2, 3. Watermark;- N SELLERS 1848. Stained and eroded by rust in 4 places. |