Flourish in the joyful air

“Enough to make a pigeon pie”

Above the fireplace you’ll see Sir Henry’s family crest of three doves and an olive branch. Painted over three days, the artist had to lie back on a mattress supported by ladders to finish the job!

In England, heraldry was a key social identifier for the upper classes, demarcating noble families and the achievements and family characteristic of which they were most proud. When Henry was knighted he obtained a crest that included the family motto “They flourish in the joyful air,” as a play on his name and the successes he had found in his new colonial home. Complementing this theme, the crest features three doves (as Henry joked, “enough to make a pigeon pie”).

For Henry to have progressed from working class immigrant to knighted gentleman with his own crest is just the kind of success story many migrants dreamed of when leaving their old lives behind. Such a change in fortune and social mobility would be practically unimaginable back in England!