Dear experts
Please can you see what you can work out from this photograph of a badge worn on the arm of my OH's relative, Jethro (or Geoffrey) Dobson, who was a waterman at Eton, and swimming master at Eton College, in the 1860s-1890s.
The records of The Worshipful Company of Watermen and Lightermen do not extend to those watermen working as far away as Eton, and while I have not therefore been able to get any apprenticeship etc. info from them, their Administrator to the Clerk was able to tell me that she thought this was definitely a waterman's uniform of some kind, and that the badge was unlike any that she had seen.
Eton College's archivist has given me general information about the duties of their swimming masters, but had no specific details about Jethro or his employment.
In looking more closely at this badge tonight, I wonder whether the arms are those of Eton College. However, the motto (or what I can read of it, anyway, which consists of the "Y" at centre top, and not much else) does not seem to fit either of the two mottos I've seen for Eton College: Floreat Etona and Esto perpetua (neither of which have a Y in them!).
The Eton College arms are described as "On a field sable three lily-flowers argent...that portion of the arms, which by royal right belong to Us in the kingdoms of France and England, be placed on the chief of the shield, per pale azure with a flower of the French, and gules with a leopard passant or" (
http://www.etoncollege.com/ArmsMotto.aspx)
I would like to know what the more learned among you think, please. Sorry about the quality of the image - it is scanned from a book (old, and out of copyright) and is the best I can do
Thank you!
Prue
