HMS Vanguard
The Name And Crest

  THE NAME.

                                     THE word "vanguard" -  derived from the French "avant-garde"
                                      - is military rather than naval in origin, and applied to the
                                     detachment of an army sent in advance of the main body to
                                     guard against surprise.  At sea, it is used in its abbreviated
                                     form " van." The idea of being to the front is implicit, in both
                                     forms ; hence the ship's motto

      "WE  LEAD."


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      THE CREST.

                                            "On a field blue, issuing from  barry of 4  white and green
                                                   a demi-lion gold supporting a spear issuing white."

                                         Records of the crests worn by earlier Vanguards are far from
                                         complete, but it seems to have been the practice for each ship
                                         to adopt a fresh design. The crest of Nelson's Vanguard -" the
                                         sternworks of a ship of the line, all proper " - was an illustration
                                         of the van ship as she would appear to her own fleet.  That of
                                         the Vanguard of 1835 portrayed a sailing ship appearing over
                                         a distant horizon, an enemy's first view of our van approaching.
                                         The eighth Vanguard's was a profile of Lord Nelson.
                                         The crest of the ninth Vanguard was a different illustration
                                         of the ship's name, containing also heraldic references to her origin
                                         and history:  a spear-head, representing the van, is held on guard
                                          by a lion, symbolic of Britain's strength;  they are shown rising
                                          from a sea of white and green, the colours of the House of
                                         Tudor in whose time the first ship of the name was built;  the
                                          lion was also the standard figurehead of the ship of the line of
                                         Nelson's day, and is thus a link - though a slender one - between
                                         this ship and Nelson's Vanguard, between those who serve in
                                         this ship and Nelson.
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