In England and Wales, coats-of-arms are granted by the College of Arms by the heralds who form that collegiate body. Founded in 1484, it brought together those members of the royal household who acted as messengers and, whilst in the service of the crown, recorded those individuals who were using armorial bearings. After its foundation, it was responsible for ensuring that coats-of-arms were used correctly according to its regulations and passed down through the generations from fathers to their sons. It could also be incorporated into the arms of the grandsons where any of his daughters, having no brothers to inherit the familial arms, had married an armiger, a man who had a coat-of-arms of his own. This would then be displayed as a quartering. Where a man was not an armiger, he could be granted new arms for service to industry, crown or country.
The first man with the surname of Halste(a)d who was granted arms was Lawrence Halsteed of Sonning in Berkshire and London. His use of arms was recorded at the Visitations of London taken from 1633 to 1635 (Harleian Society, vol. 15, p. 343). This recorded the information gathered by the heralds on their periodic journeys to the counties of England and Wales to determine who had the right to bear arms. Lawrence Hallsted Esquire was a merchant of London in 1634 and was married to Hester Chamberlain, daughter of Abraham, another merchant of the capital city. He was one of three sons of John Hallsted and the grandson of Oliver Hallsted, both of Rowley in Lancashire. The other two sons were named John and George. It is recorded that his arms described heraldically as Gules, an eagle displayed ermine beaked and legged or a chief chequy or and azure. Those arms had been granted on 20th November 1628 by Sir William Segar who was Garter King of Arms to King Charles. It is not recorded why arms had been granted to Lawrence. At that time, he had seven sons, the oldest being named after his father.
This copy of the visitation pedigree is in the library of the Society of Genealogists in London and previously belonged to Percival Boyd, an eminent genealogist. He annotated it with other entries for this Halste(a)d family which he had located in records. It suggests that Lawrence was the Keeper of the Records at the Tower of London and a draper.
An abstract of the same grant of arms is included in The Genealogist, New Series, vol. 16, p. 263.
The same pedigree and arms were also recorded at the Visitation of Berkshire (Harl. Soc., vol. 57, pp. 135-136) showing that in an Exemplification of Arms from the College of Arms (R. 22, p. 321) a crest was also granted to Lawrence Halsted being on a crown mural a demi eagle azure displayed ermine.
It would be expected that these Halsted arms would be passed down the lines of descent of all seven sons who had children of their own. Lawrence was buried at Sonning on 5th December 1654. No will was proved for him but power to administer his estate was granted to his eldest son Lawrence on 21st July 1655 by the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. It is now known that his 12 children, ten sons and two daughters, were baptised in the three parish churches in the City of London from 1622 to 1639. Four died as infants, leaving seven sons and one daughter.
According to his entry in Boyd’s Inhabitants of London (ref. no. 3670 – now digitised by Find My Past), Lawrence was a merchant of the parish of St Christopher le Stocks and a partner with John Kendrick, citizen and draper.
A great deal of genealogical information about people named Halste(a)d, who lived on the island of Jamaica was recorded in the periodical Caribbeana, vol. 5, pp. 232-234. It records information abstracted from probate records together with a four generations pedigree of the Halsted family. It includes a Lawrence Halsted Esq. son of Laurence, who was a first cousin of Mathew Halsted Esq. of the Inner Temple in London and of Jamaica, whose will was dated 7th March 1726. Another will, apparently for the same testator, as it includes reference to the same properties in Jamaica and similar beneficiaries, was also abstracted. That was dated 8th September 1725. To this document was attached a heraldic seal bearing arms of “Gules, an eagle displayed, a chief checky …..” and a crest of “out of a coronet a demi-eagle ermine displayed”. Those arms and crest are almost identical to those granted to Lawrence Halsteed in 1628.
The author of the article in Caribbeana recites the information from the original grant to Laurence Halsted in 1628 of Sonning and London and recorded at the heralds’ visitation. It concludes “It is probably from one of the above sons that the Halsteds of Jamaica derive their descent”.
In the will of Mathias Halsted of London, merchant, “bound out to the parts beyond the seas” was dated 8th August 1677 and proved on 4th March 1679/80 (PCC 11/360, fol. 156). He had a wife named Frances and his executors were his brothers Abraham of Woodham Feryes in Essex, gent, and Charles of London, grocer. It is now known that this man was the 8th child of Lawrence Halsted, the man who was granted arms in 1628. Did he take the use of the coat-of-arms with him to Jamaica?
It is also possible that the Mathias of Jamaica was the son of John Halsted of Rowley (born 1608, Burnley), by his second wife, Eleanor (Townley), and was baptised on 2nd August 1650 at St Peter, Burnley. If so, he was the half-brother of Lawrence Halsted, who was born in 1638. Rather, than as suggested by Percival Boyd, it was this Lawrence Halsted who was to become the Keeper of the Records at the Tower of London.
In An History of the Original Parish of Whalley and Honour of Clitheroe (4th Edition – 1876, Vol. 2, Book 4, Chap III, pp. 233-234), there is a pedigree which was originally compiled by Thomas Dunham Whitaker of the family of Halsted of the township of Rowley which extended descent of the visitation pedigree of 1634. Its scope is from William Halsted, who was living in the 3rd year of Henry V, down through John Halsted, born in 1579 and died about 1628. He was the brother of Laurence who was granted arms in 1628. Is this why Laurence obtained his grant of arms in that year after the death of his older brother? The pedigree had been expanded in this revised edition, using information from the memorials in Burnley church, through the work of Nichols and Gough. It records:
The pedigree extends through a further seven generations to another Laurence Halsted who was living in the early 19th century. No information was recorded about the armiger and his brothers. The grandson of John Halsted of Rowley, who was baptised in 1579 at Burnley, Lancashire, and was buried there in 1629, was recorded as Laurence Halsted. He was born in 1638 to John Halsted and Hester (Cooke) and it was he who was to become the Keeper of the Records at the Tower of London.
The pedigree continued the family line at Rowley through his only surviving son Charles (1675-1732) and Isabel (Banastre or Banister). It descends through another four generations to the issue of Nicholas Halstead (1755-1808) and Elizabeth (Scott) and of Henry Halsted (1761-1845) and Anne (Crawood). These two brothers were the sons of Laurence Halsted and Mary (Cunliffe) who married in 1752 in Burnley church.
A daughter of Nicholas Halsted called Ellen Esther (1791-1824) married Robert Holgate of Habergham Eaves at Burnley in 1824. They had five children born there in the six years from 1818 to 1824. Two daughters survived to adulthood. One was Eliza, who married Lt. Col. Edward Evert-Clayton, and the other was Amelia. According to the wishes of their maternal aunts, Jane and Elizabeth Halsted, and expressed in their wills, did in 1846 by Royal Licence (College of Arms, I55/301 and Grants: 48/157) request that their nieces take the surname and use the arms of Halsted. Eliza Every-Clayton passed the arms of Halsted down to her male issue through two grants of arms dated 1886 (College of Arms, Grants Vol. 63, pages 281 and 284), one quartering the arms of Holgate and the second the arms of Every. This was recorded in a pedigree showing the descent of the Holgate children from Lawrence Halsted (1638-1690) of Rowley, Worsthorne, Burnley, Lancashire (College of Arms MS, Norfolk 9/34).
Mary Louise Hurst (1919-2016), the widow of Raymond Lewis-Jones (1919-1999), set up the Halsted Trust in 2001. She was the great-granddaughter of Eliza Holgate (1818-1889), wife of Edward Every-Clayton (l801-1885). Eliza’s only son was named Charles Edward Every Halsted (1857-1935) according to the Grants of Arms of 1886. He only had two daughters, both of whom used the surname of Every-Halsted. There are no living Halsteds through this line of descent.
The pedigree and arms of the family of Lawrence Halsted of Rowley and of the Tower of London gentleman were recorded at the Visitation of London taken at the College of Arms on 20th June 1688 (College of Arms K9/224-5, reproduced in Harleian Society, New Series, vol. 16, pp. 289-291):
Both the families of Rowley, Lancashire, and of Sonning, Berkshire and London, used the same arms. The only difference was in their crests, the first using a mural crown checky or and azure, granted on 10th May 1688 (Grants 3/347), whilst the original grant was of a mural crown azure out of which issued the demi eagle displayed ermine. The arms could be passed down through both family lines from the common ancestor, John Halsted of Rowley.
A pedigree of another Halsted family appears in the Visitation of Huntingdonshire for 1684 (College of Arms K7/10-11, reproduced in Harl. Soc., New Series, vol. 13, pp. 80-81). This branch of the family used Untinct an eagle displayed ermine a chief checky of three rows untinct. Its crest was out of a mural crown untinct a demi eagle displayed ermine. These are the same arms and crest as were granted to Lawrence Halsted in 1628. The pedigree recorded by the current user, John Halsted of Pudley, Huntingdonshire, aged 55, began with Richard Halsted, a cleric of Halifax, Yorkshire, who was born at Halsted Hall, Lancashire. He was John’s grandfather. John, in 1684, had two young sons, John and Job.
The same coat-of-arms granted to Laurence Halsted in 1628 and confirmed to his great-nephew of the same name in 1688, also appears on three hatchments, wooden death memorials, hanging on the walls of the parish church of Lymm in Cheshire. The armorial bearings illustrated are blazoned in Hatchments of Britain, vol. 8, p. 15, edited by Peter Summers and John E. Titterton. They are high up in the church and very dirty. They have recently been photographed by Shirley Heelas and Timothy Old.
One records the death of the Reverend Domville Halstead LL.B, of Dane Bank, Lymm, who was buried on 31st December 1781. The Halsted arms are shown quartered with those of his mother’s father’s family, the Domvilles, impaling those of his wife Elizabeth Cheshire (Chesshyre), whom he married on 15th October 1760 in the parish church of Warrington, Cheshire. A second hatchment was for Elizabeth, Domville’s widow, buried there on 3rd January 1795. The arms are the same as those depicted on the hatchment of her husband from 14 years previously.
The third hatchment records the arms of Domville Poole, also of Dane Bank, the son and heir of the Reverend Domville and Elizabeth Halstead. According to an announcement in the Manchester Mercury published on 16th July 1782, “The King has been pleased to grant to Domville Halsted of Lymm, in the county of Chester, Esq.: pursuant to the Will of the Rev. Cudworth Poole late of Great Woolden, in the County Palatine of Lancaster, deceased, his Royal Licence and Authority to take and use the Surname and also bear the Arms of Poole”. His arms are those of Poole quartered with those of his paternal grandparents, Halstead and Domville. On an escutcheon of pretence were displayed the arms of Massey of Rostherne. Domville Poole married Sarah, daughter and co-heiress of James Massey of Manchester and Rostherne, in Manchester Cathedral on 20th January 1783. He died at Bath on 26th April 1795.
The pedigree of the family of Domville of Lymme Hall can be viewed in The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester by George Ormerod (1882), vol. 1, pp. 579-584.
It is not currently known how John Halsted, who died at Wigan in 1683, the ancestor of this branch of the Halsteds was related to the original armiger of 1628.
In The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales (1884), Sir Bernard Burke listed three versions of the coats-of-arms that were granted in 1628, according to the visitation, to Lawrence Hallsted of Sonning and London. It is stated that one of those was granted on 10th May 1687 (sic) with the crest. A Halsted family of London was by that date apparently using the arms with the chief being chequy argent and azure rather than chequy or and azure.
Burke also recorded another Halsted coat which was Gules, two bars argent in chief three plates with no place attributed to it.
In August 2024, John Stirling, Ross Herald in Scotland, brought to our attention a silver cake basket, which had been engraved with what appear to be the Halsted arms from 1628 and 1688.
An image of the arms is reproduced with his permission. The hatching does not clearly indicate that the field was gules. The eagle has also been given a crown for some reason. The basket is hallmarked for 1743 and was made, we are informed, by Mrs Elizabeth Godfrey, the daughter of a Huguenot silversmith. It is a fine piece of work with rococo dolphins, lion masks, and lion claw feet. It weighs just under 59 ounces.
Who commissioned such a fine cutting-edge design which would appear to have been made right at the beginning of this style of cake basket? Was it a Halsted who could afford to have such a piece made in the mid-18th century and have his arms proudly engraved upon it? Was the engraving contemporary with the newly made basket. If so, whose was it?
Since the 1680s, there has been only one new grant to a man with the surname of Halste(a)d. That was on the 15th November 1926 to Reginald Gordon Halsted of Porchester Terrace, Paddington, gentleman (1870-1955). By Letters Patent, he was granted by the College of Arms the right to use Checky or and azure on a pale sable an eagle displayed or between two roses argent barbed and seeded proper with a crest of: Issuant from a mural crown argent an eagle’s head or wreathed about the neck with a chaplet of roses as in the arms leaved vert and holding in the beak a key palewise ward downwards argent (Grants: 94/36).
There is apparently an 8-generation pedigree of this grantee in the records of the College of Arms which extends his line of ancestry back to Henry Halstead of Higher Lupsett in Horbury, Yorkshire, who was born about 1647.
