Colonel Joseph Vaughan Johnson CSC AAM RFD ED MA LLM PhD

Licentiate in Musicology (Hons) FSA Scot FRGS

Registered: The International Register of Arms, 7th July 2011. Registration No. 0195 (Vol.2)

Arms: Per saltire Azure and Argent, in chief two swords in saltire points downwards Proper hilted and pommelled Or in base five mullets Argent representing the Southern Cross and in each flank a quill pen paleways Gules.

Crest: Emerging from a sea Azure and Argent the head of a leopard seal Proper

Motto: Si Sumpsero Pinnas Diluculo

Pennon: 120 centimetres in length or thereby of these Liveries Argent and Azure with the Arms of the Petitioner in the hoist bearing his Motto in two lines counterchanged.

Grant: 29 April 2011, Court of the Lord Lyon, upon the 85th page of the 89th Volume of the Public Register of All Arms and Bearings in Scotland.

The Arms were devised by the Lord Lyon King at Arms. The crossed swords represent the armiger’s service in the Australian Army; the quill pens represent legal scholarship – the armiger being a Bachelor of Laws with Honours of the University of London and a Master of Laws of the Australian National University, as well as being a member of the Stair Society, Edinburgh, the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and the American Society of International Law. The stars of the Southern Cross reflect the armiger’s service in the Antarctic, culminating in his appointment as Chair of the Australian Antarctic Names and Medal Committee, and this theme is further developed in the crest and in the motto Si Sumpsero Pinnas Diluculo (If I take the wings of the morning, taken from the Vulgate Psalter, Psalm 138, Verse 8, which reads in its entirety If I take the wings of morning and remain in the uttermost part of the sea, even there also shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me).

The two decorations (which do not form a part of the Grant) are the Australian Conspicuous Service Cross, awarded for the application of exceptional skills, judgment and dedication as the Director of the Australian Army’s Reserve Staff Group; and the Australian Antarctic Medal, awarded for outstanding service in the Antarctic. This rendition of the Arms is by Yvonne Holton, Herald Painter to the Court of the Lord Lyon. archives.

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