Walter Carpenter

Admiral Walter Cecil Carpenter (27 March 1834 – 13 May 1904), also known as Walter Cecil Talbot until he changed his name by Royal licence, was a Royal Navy officer who became a senior officer, Coast of Ireland Station.

Early life Walter Talbot (then so surnamed) was born on 27 March 1834 in Ingestre, Staffordshire, England and died on 13 May 1904 at Westminster part of central London, and he was buried on 15 May 1904 in Bolton-on-Swale, North Yorkshire, England. He was the second son of Henry Chetwynd-Talbot, 18th Earl of Shrewsbury and Lady Sarah Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry Beresford, 2nd Marquess of Waterford, by his marriage to Sarah Carpenter whereupon he took her surname by royal licence. He played first-class cricket for the Marylebone Cricket Club in 1851, making a single appearance against Middlesex at Lord's.

Naval career Walter Talbot (then so surnamed) entered the Royal Navy in 1847. Promoted to lieutenant on 22 September 1854, he served on as a lieutenant from 24 June 1856 during the Crimean War in the Black Sea and then later in the Mediterranean Sea. He was assigned to on 6 December 1858. In addition he was cited as "Naval aide de camp" to Queen Victoria from 1880 to 1882. Promoted to full admiral on 28 May 1894, he fully retired on 11 March 1896.

These arms are often referred to as the Hereford Arms, named for the later ancestral home of the Carpenter family in Hereford, England. The crest, supporters and motto apparently have changed several times over the centuries.

Because of the lack of surviving children of Walter Carpenter the arms were later given by Royal license to another relative after his death in 1904. Sir William Boyd Carpenter (1841–1918), an English clergyman of the Established church of England, Bishop of Ripon, afterwards a Canon of Westminster and Chaplain to the reigning sovereign of England, wrote in a letter dated 7 August 1907 that his family bore the Hereford Arms. Sir Noel Paton, upon painting the Family Arms, informed him that the supporters were originally a round-handled sword, which in drawing over time became shortened, until nothing but the cross and globe were left beneath it. Those Hereford Arms were used by "John Carpenter, town clerk of London, who died 1442 A. D."

The Hereford coat of arms described above should not be confused with the arms of Bishop Richard Carpenter (c1450s?–1503) presented in the "Visitations of the County of Oxford taken in 1566, 1574, and 1634, published in 1871, which describe the arms displayed in the buildings at the University in Oxford – "In the Lyberarye of Baliall College." – as recorded by the officials performing the visitations in those years. The Visitations describe the arms of Bishop Richard Carpenter (c1450s–1503) as: "Paly of nine Gu. and Az. on a chevron Arg. surmounted by a mitre Or, three cross crosslets of—nine pales alternating red and blue, with a silver chevron bearing three gold cross-crosslets.

Ancestry