Pretoria

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PRETORIA

Province : Gauteng
Metropolitan Municipality : Tshwane

Official blazon

Origin/meaning

The arms were officially granted on February 7, 1907 by the College of Arms in London, registered with the Transvaal Provincial Administration in March 1953 and at the Bureau of Heraldry in May 1968..

The inescutcheon is canting. The town of Pretoria was named at the time of its founding (as the seat of a new landdrost's district) after the Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius (who came from Graaff-Reinet) and his son Martinus Wessel Pretorius, President of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek and (briefly) also of the Oranje Vrij Staat. The name Pretorius (from the Latin "prætorius") is a translation of the Dutch surname Schout or of the German surname Schultz, both of which mean a sheriff or magistrate. Originally the escutcheon showed a Roman praetor with stick, but these were in 1943 replaced by the judge.