By Roselyn Fauth
If you’ve ever walked past the council buildings, or glanced up at the Theatre Royal façade, or flicked through an old council minute book, you’ve probably seen Timaru’s coat of arms without really noticing it. Most of us do. It’s just… there. Sitting quietly. But once you start looking, it becomes a bit of a history hunt, and the clues start falling into place.
I didn’t set out to become interested in heraldry, yet here we are. Every time I dip back into the life of architect Percy Watts Rule, I end up wandering off down a side track, and this has been one of the most surprising. Coats of arms seem old-fashioned and distant until you realise ours isn’t distant at all. It was shaped by people who lived here, long before the official paperwork arrived from London...
A coat of arms isn’t a logo.
It comes from a world of painted shields and tournaments, where people needed bold symbols so they didn’t accidentally clobber the wrong knight. Over the centuries it turned into a whole system with rules and heralds and beautiful script on vellum. That system still exists, which is how Timaru ended up applying to the New Zealand Herald of Arms. The grant finally arrived on 18 October 1977.
But that’s not really the start of the story... and I found Percy Rule in the middle of it
Decades earlier, architect Percy Watts Rule had drawn an unofficial coat of arms for Timaru. His version sits quietly in the Aoraki Heritage Archive and in the Alexander Turnbull Library. When you look at it, you can see the bones of what we still use today. Percy and D. C. Turnbull were partners in an architectural firm, but their families were tied into the civic life of Timaru long before that. So it makes sense, in a way, that Percy would think about what symbol could speak for this place.
Once you start noticing the symbols, you stop seeing them as decoration. They’re more like shorthand for whole chapters of our history.
• The chevron points straight to Aoraki, the mountain that anchors the region.
• The fleeces and plough acknowledge the work that went into making South Canterbury productive.
• The ships remind us how much Timaru has depended on the sea.
• The waves and those two proud hippocampi hint at the wild coastline and its stories.
• The sunburst is exactly what it looks like: the bright, dry climate we all know.
• And the kiwi sits there reminding us where home is.
Underneath sits the motto: “No Reward Without Effort.” You can tell whoever chose that line understood South Canterbury people pretty well.
How it found its way onto our streets
After the official grant in 1977, the coat of arms started appearing everywhere. Barrie Bracefield worked it into the Theatre Royal façade because he felt the city needed a stronger civic identity. You’ll find it on documents, signs, plaques, and even the Clock Tower. Once you notice it, it turns up in the oddest places.
And then there’s CPlay, where the hippocamp reappears in bright yellow as the “C-horse”, complete with a cheeky necklace. Children clamber over it without thinking twice about heraldry, and I love that.
What I enjoy most is how the coat of arms has kept evolving with the people who live here. Artists like Francine Spencer and I have reimagined its creatures as the Hippocamp and the Taniwha, guardians of the sea and the land. The taniwha brings in the depth and strength of Māori traditions, reminding us that waterways have stories older than the town itself. The hippocamp brings in the old mythologies carried across oceans. Somehow the pair sit comfortably together.
Why this little history hunt matters
Looking into the coat of arms isn’t just about symbols. It’s really about understanding where we come from and why this place looks and feels the way it does. You follow one thread and it leads to another: settlers, tangata whenua, architects, breakwaters, farms, ships, storms, and the people who kept showing up to build something here.
The coat of arms holds all those layers in one small, tidy design. When we stop and look at it properly, we get a clearer sense of who we were, who we are today, and the kind of community we want to keep building.
And that, to me, is what makes this whole history hunt so interesting.
A new foyer was built, decorated with the Timaru District Council’s coat of arms in its stained-glass windows. The theatre’s foyer (with the stained-glass windows featuring the coat of arms) was reconstructed in 1992-93 under architect Barrie Bracefield.
Coats of Arms Around the World
Once you start noticing coats of arms, you realise they turn up in the most unexpected places: carved above town halls, stitched into flags, tucked onto passports, printed on ancient coins, or hidden in dusty archives. They’ve been around for so long that their origins feel a bit like folklore, yet the whole system is surprisingly organised and global.
So here’s a friendly meander through the history of coats of arms — not an academic deep dive, just the story of how these symbols travelled the world and why they still matter.
Imagine you’re on a medieval battlefield. It’s muddy, chaotic, loud, and absolutely everyone is wearing a metal helmet. The only way to tell friend from foe is to paint something bold and unmistakable on your shield. A lion. A chevron. Three stars. Anything that can be spotted at a distance and won’t be confused with someone else’s paint job.
Those battlefield designs were the earliest coats of arms.
As fighting moved from survival to sport, tournaments became big public events. Knights rode in full armour, and their shields were decorated more elaborately. Suddenly you had families wanting their own designs, passed down to sons and grandsons.
This is where heraldry starts acting like a real system:
heralds recording designs, checking who used what, preventing someone from copying someone else’s symbols, and making sure everything followed the rules.
By the 12th and 13th centuries, coats of arms spread across Europe. Kings had them, cities had them, guilds had them, and even some women adopted their own heraldic marks. Each region developed its own style:
• England and Scotland — strict rules, detailed records, and heraldic colleges that still operate today.
• France — elegant lines, flowing curves, and lots of fleurs-de-lis.
• Germany — bold colours and shapes that often filled the entire shield.
• Spain and Portugal — rich with castles, lions, and symbols of empire.
• Italy — full of ancient family arms linked to city-states like Florence and Venice.
The amazing thing is that every one of these traditions still exists. Heraldry became a kind of international visual language long before we ever had keyboards or emojis.
When people sailed from Europe to other continents, they brought heraldry with them. This is why you see coats of arms in: Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and former colonies around the world. Some nations adapted it to local stories and symbols. New Zealand’s use of Māori motifs and figures shows how old systems can meet new cultures and create something hybrid.
Not just knights and kings anymore. Over time, coats of arms became widespread: towns and cities adopted them, universities used them, churches and cathedrals displayed them, professions created their own, and in modern times, corporations and military units joined in
Some are centuries old. Some were created last year. The process is still the same: someone petitions the heralds, explains what matters to their community or family, and the heralds turn that story into a symbolic design.
You might think coats of arms would have faded away, but people still request them because:
• they’re timeless
• they’re rooted in story, not trends
• they create a sense of belonging
• they acknowledge heritage and identity
• and they link us to a global system that has somehow survived a thousand years
A coat of arms is, at heart, a symbolic biography. It says: here’s who we are, what we value, and how we want future generations to remember us. And that brings us back to Timaru... Understanding how heraldry developed around the world helps us understand why Timaru’s coat of arms matters. It’s not just a picture. It’s our place explained in symbols, created through a system that has linked communities across continents for centuries. When we look at our chevron, the plough, the ships, the sunburst, the kiwi, and those two cheeky hippocampi, we’re not just seeing decoration. We’re seeing Timaru’s story told in a symbolic and heraldry language that is much older than the Timaru city we know today.
Percy's coat of arms on the Timaru District Council Clock tower.
Various forms were used in other coat of arms like the Timaru Caroline Bay Association
Featured in Caroline Bay Mural
Artwork reinterprets the coat of arms by artists Roselyn Fauth and Francine Spencer - the Hippocamp and the Taniwha - Sentinels of the Sea - Guardian of the Waters and the Land. A taniwha is a powerful being found in Māori traditions. They are guardians, protectors, and sometimes challengers, depending on the story and the relationship people have with them. Taniwha can take many shapes and personalities, but they are always connected to the natural world and to deep places where people must show respect. A Hippocamp is a majestic creature that is associated with sea gods like Poseidon, who used them to pull his chariot through the sea. They were trusted companions to the gods and were considered good omens to sailors and sea nymphs. See if you can find the hippocamp at the playground and colour this one in.
Taniwha are kaitiaki – guardians. They can protect people, guide travellers, warn of danger, watch over sacred or important places, or guard treasures. Taniwha are part of Māori identity, genealogy, and the way people understand the land and waterways. They help explain why certain places must be treated with care and remind us that every river, bay, and lagoon has its own story.
The Timaru District Councils, now defunked Coat of Arms were granted on October 18, 1977. These heraldic emblems also apply to the whole District. The Coat of Arms by the District Council has been approved by the NZ Herald of Arms.
A horse with a fishtail is known as a Hippocamp. Its origins trace back to ancient Egyptians who painted eyes on their boats to ward off evil spirits. The Greeks expanded upon this tradition, incorporating Greek mythology into their ship figureheads.
These majestic creatures were associated with sea gods like Poseidon, who used them to pull his chariot through the sea. Hippocampi lived secretive lives in the ocean, mainly keeping to themselves, yet they were trusted companions to the gods and were considered good omens to sailors and sea nymphs. Over time, ship figureheads evolved into the likeness of women, often representing the ship owner's wife or daughter.
In Timaru's crest, the hippocampus wore a necklace with a "T" for Timaru, which was humorously changed to a "C" by Cplay, along with placing the hippocampus on a yellow horse, dubbed the "C horse."
It's important to distinguish hippocampi from other water horses like the Scottish Kelpie, as the former are peaceful creatures while the latter are often seen as malevolent sea monsters.
Another interesting fact about the Hippocampus is that it’s not the only fish tailed creature in Greek mythology. You may also know about the following:
The Leokampos – The Fish – Tailed Lion
The Taurokampos – The Fish-Tailed Bull
The Pardalokampos – The Fish-Tailed
The Aigikampos – The Fish-Tailed Goat