The Right Honorable

Washington Sewallis Earl Ferrers

BOOKPLATE OF EARL FERRERS, ENGLAND

Showing the Arms of the Washington Family in the Earl's Coat of Arms

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HROUGH the kindness of the Boston Transcript, we are able to show our readers something unique in Washington-ana: the Washington arms, the familiar Stars and Stripes, shown as part of the Ferrers arms. A correspondent of the Transcript writes:

London, March 22.

There is here one very beautiful three-quarter length painting of George Washington which very few Americans have ever seen, or for that matter comparatively few Englishmen, for it has never been reproduced and has remained since the time of the Revolution in the quiet seclusion of Staunton Harold, the picturesque and homelike Leicestershire country seat of the Shirley family, of which Earl Ferrers is the titular chief and of which Governor Shirley of Massachusetts was a prominent member.

Staunton Harold is a most delightful mansion of fair size, with lovely park and grounds and about two hundred years old, but the Shirleys have been settled in that part of England for over five hundred years.

The Shirley family, or that part of it which holds the earldom of Ferrers, are certainly the right people to possess a unique picture of the first President of the United States, as they have a common Washington ancestor. The first earl married Elizabeth Washington of the Wiltshire Washingtons (1671-1693) and as a result the arms of the Washington family are quartered with those of the earls of Ferrers and most curiously in conjunction with the royal Plantagenet arms of France and England (the lions and lilies) which also form part of the Ferrers' quarterings. The Shirley family are directly descended from the Plantagenets and thus part of the arms of France and England, as well as part of the arms of the United States, appear in the Ferrers' shield as shown in the accompanying reproduction. The present Lord Ferrers, eleventh earl, remarks of this: "The bookplate of Washington Sewallis, ninth earl (1842-1859) shows the Washington arms in the last quarter immediately after the royal arms of England. On the first earl's plate (1671 and 1693) his wife's arms as heiress are shown in the middle on an escutcheon of pretence." He also declines to allow photographs of his Washington picture to be taken, as being likely to make it common and detract from its value. It is declared to be a most characteristic likeness as compared with other well-known pictures, and is in the civil costume of the day, three-quarters length and pleasing in every particular, but it has no mark to declare who painted it. The best experts in London today declare it to be by Benjamin West, who painted many contemporary portraits in both America and England. It has been at Staunton Harold for nearly a hundred and forty years.