The stork, the seal and the plate

We mentioned it before the Vlieland descendants are genealogy detectives.
So every once and a while the stork , the plate and the seal surface .
Why ? because we still do not know everything about it.

And one of the detectives said could it be the ceramic plate of which we do not know much ?

the reference to "a handsome piece of plate" does not refer to a plate as such as in dinner plate necessary. Plate is a 19th century term used when referring to silver plate as in "Sheffield silver plate". A thin layer of silver electroplated onto another metal. Probably it would have been a plate but could have been anything I think probably this handsome plate referred to would have been a commemorative piece with an inscription on it from his grateful parishioners. Such engraved things were quite the fashion at that time.  The only plate I know of in silver was one my cousins once referred too. She said her Uncle (Charles Vlieland of Exeter) had a large silver plate with a stork engraved on it which she believed was family.

And yes there is the stork again .

We still do not know where the stork comes from .Is it from the city of The Hague in Holland who has a coat of arms with the stork? Is it a family coat of arms likethe Stork family.To remember a birth?

it is also on a spoon

here the story of the Spoon with the stork.

An interesting thing happened yesterday. I was looking for something in the depths of a cupboard when I found some silverware which belonged to my grandmother, I have not looked at these items for years, well I had a quick look through and spotted a spoon with a monogram on the handle, the monogram was a stork!! I suddenly thought I wonder if this is the same monogram that is spoken about in the letter. 

The letter Charles James Vlieland wrote to Holland and in which he says there was a family crest

Certain of my relatives think it was a stork with a snake in its bill. This stork does not carry the eel in it's beak but has it's foot raised on a cross, it is also standing on a twisted rope style ground.
One family member mailed

So here is the stork and of course there is a back on this spoon

Then another family member explains this back side .The duty mark. This is the monarchs head, in this case George III. This was to show duty had been paid to the crown on this spoon before it has its assay mark struck. In this case he is what is called “in cameo” as he has an oval mount around him.

Then the lion is what is called passant (standing on 3 legs) also he is not looking ahead of himself but at you. Hard to tell I know but if you saw one looking ahead you would see how it differs.

The date letter is a Roman uppercase K in a cartouche that is flat at the top with slants either side and a shield shape at the bottom.

Every year and City has variations of these things, the date letter especially, as it can be one of many fonts with a different surround.
The only place that has all these ingredients at one time is London 1805-1806.
And this is what the first familymember had discovered as well
The makers marks of
Thomas Wallis II


as you can see here as well .So we know it is made in 1805 in London by Thomas Wallis .

And maybe it was a present for someone born in 1805

Then the stork


The third familymember asked help at the Dutch heraldic society about the stork.And they explained 
It is possible Anglo-Saxon, as the stork with the knob cross under his footand it  stands on a knot .

This is a so-called crest In the English part of the world it can be used separately without helmet marks on the weapon., As a kind of synecdoche.
Very heraldic and maybe quite understandable but it does not make sense for this familymember .


But we can conclude that it is British and about the time Jerome was born obviously we have no way of knowing if this was part of the Vlieland silver but it is nice to think it could be. 

So that was the end of that investigation .

and then there was a seal

he Dutch center for heraldry found out is was the crest of the Lefevre family of Guernsey.
So how did this seal ended up in the Vlieland family who could it belong to?
Well the connection with the Lefebures as the original name of the Lefevres is from Elisabeth Lefebures.
She had a will dated 1824 and proved 1827.
She married on 8 December 1808 at St Alphage Church Greenwich when she was 48 years old with John Samworth of Greenwich Kent.
She is described as late Elizabeth Lefebure widow
This John Samworth had a son by his first wife born in 1790.
This son had a daughter Frances Elizabeth Samworth in 1825 and she married Jerome Nicholas Vlieland the younger or the vicar as we say.
The seal must have past down the family to her and with the passage of time through the Vlieland family.
So that was the story of the seal .

So maybe after all these years someone can tell us more and otherwise we will be hunting for many years to come.