The Society's Crest and Motto

At the meeting of the Membership Committee, it was accepted that many members would like to know more about the history and significance of our badge.

As one might expect, its originator was the Rev. Lambert Larking who virtually founded the Society. Actually, he got himself into a rather difficult position by asking both Thomas Willemont of Faversham and Herbert Smith of London to produce designs - a difficulty from which he managed to extricate himself by persuading the 3 daughters of the Earl of Abergavenny to pay the costs of Herbert Smith's design, whereupon Willemot chivalrously withdrew. Smith's design, which was in the shape of the Alfred Jewel, was engraved by Orlando Jewitt (1799-1869) who also produced the excellent illustrations of the carvings in St. Mary, Stone, Church. (Arch. Cant. vol. 1 p97-154) and their names appear beneath the first version of the badge in Volumes I to V of Arch. Cant. The motto 'Cant-Wara Maegth', which was also originated by Lambert Larking, is Anglo-Saxon for 'the tribe of the Kent men', though I should perhaps add that the then Regius Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford took fifteen lines of close print to explain what he considered to be its full meaning, which makes me thankful that I only had to deal with the simplicities of Latin and Greek!

The later history of the badge is as follows. The names of the designer and engraver were omitted in Volume VI of Arch. Cant. (1865) and in Volume IX (1874), the design of the horse was altered - it is not known by whom or why - being changed from one with a flowing mane to one with its mane resting on its neck.

It has continued in this form until the present day and as far as Archaeologia Cantiana is concerned, but the Newsletter has, very properly, reverted to the original design which gives credit - where credit is surely due - to Herbert Smith and Orlando Jewitt.

A. C. Harrison