Justin Croft Antiquarian Books - Rare and Antiquarian Books and Manuscripts

First edition of this book of precedency, engraved throughout. Joseph Edmondson was an artist of humble origins who had begun his career as a coach-painter, and became coach-painter to Queen Charlotte in 1763. “On 21 January 1764, thanks to the support of the new deputy earl marshal, Lord Suffolk, Edmondson was created Mowbray herald of arms extraordinary, although he continued his successful coach-painting business until his death. His brother officers, especially Stephen Martin Leake, Garter, regarded him as an ignorant and low ‘mechanic’, and only reluctantly did they now allow him, as an extraordinary herald and not a member of the college, access to their records and collections” (Ailes in Oxford DNB). Precedency gives tables of precedency of British men and women and provides a list of “collar days” on which those entitled may wear their official “collars” indicating precedency. The book was reprinted in a second edition c. 1785.