Lochgelly
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 Civic heraldry of the United Kingdom |
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LOCHGELLY
Incorporated into : 1975 Dunfermline District Council (1996 Fife Area Council)
Official blazon
Quarterly wavy: 1st, Argent, three lozenges Sable; 2nd, per bend Azure and Gules, on a bend engrailed Or, between a mullet in chief and a fleur-de-lys in base Argent, a baton of the First; 3rd, Sable, a plate charged with a lowe of flame Gules; 4th, Argent, a miner's pick Sable, the head in chief and the haft Proper, surmounted of a fess of the Second, charged with three cinquefoils of the field.
Below the Shield which is ensigned with a coronet appropriate to a Burgh is placed in an Escrol this Motto "By Industry we Flourish".
Origin/meaning
The arms were granted on September 21, 1948.
Lochgelly grew from a village into a thriving coal-mining town in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The quartered arms show (1) three black lozenges for coal and the coal-mining industry;
(2) three features from the arms of the Earls of Minto, who formerly owned Lochgelly House, and whose ancestor, Sir Gilbert Elliot, first exploited the Lochgelly coalfield; these are a blue baton and golden engrailed bar on a red field (for Elliot), a silver star on blue (for Murray), and a fleur-de-lys (for Kynynmound); the wavy in the base also recalls Loch Gelly;
(3) a representation of a lamp, both for a miner's safety lamp and for the old tallow lamp of which the town was the main centre of manufacture;
(4) a miner's pick, which is another reference to coal-mining, with three silver cinquefoils on a black fess for Boswell of Balmuto, a family closely connected with the district. The motto comes from the seal adopted by the Burgh in 1892.
 Seal of the burgh as used in the 1890s |
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© since 1995, Heraldry of the World, Ralf Hartemink 
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Literature : Porteous, 1906; Urquhart, 1974