✦ British · Windsor · Photograph: ca. 1915–1920
The banners that leave. The plates that stay.
An early twentieth-century photograph shows banners above stalls that also retain plates. The display combines changing membership with a lasting record of earlier holders.
Bain News Service / Library of Congress · Public domain. Resized without cropping or recolouring.
Enlarge the photograph ↗
✦ Photograph-based observations
Which parts of an honour survive their holder?
Rows of banners hang over carved stalls. Helms and crest-like ornaments stand along the canopies, while small rectangular plates cover parts of the woodwork below.
The photograph is monochrome and angled. It records the relative placement of these things, but folded cloth and distance conceal some charges and inscriptions. Written numbers along the upper edge belong to the photographic record.
What the record tells us
The photograph’s reproduced Library of Congress metadata gives a date between about 1915 and 1920, Bain News Service as publisher, and the call number LC-B2-4463-12. The College of St George’s institutional explanation distinguishes temporary banner, helm, mantling, and crest displays from stall plates that remain after a holder’s death. That explanation supplies the practice, not a verified name for every banner in this particular view. [1]
✦ Editorial interpretation
What follows from the arrangement?
The stalls bring together things that remain for different lengths of time. The College's account explains that a holder's banner and other display can be removed while a stall plate remains. A new holder can therefore occupy a place that also preserves records of previous members. Once we understand that mechanism, the photograph becomes a dated view of a changing institution rather than a fixed diagram of the Order. Its banners and plates may share space without all referring to the same holder or moment.
Separate the living display from the enduring memorial record. The presence of a banner and a plate near one another is a promising relationship, but the camera’s angle is not a catalogue of their identities. A dated stall list, legible plate, and documented banner position would be needed to connect them securely.
The image’s own history also matters. A catalogue range is not an exact exposure date, and the photograph’s date is not the date of the medieval architecture or every item shown. Comparing this view with another period is valuable precisely because the display can change.
Claims and their evidence
| Claim | Evidence | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Banners hang above the stalls, with further heraldic objects beneath them. | Bain photograph | The view does not identify every represented holder. |
| The photo is catalogued to about 1915–1920. | Library of Congress metadata reproduced with the file | A date range, not a precise day or the dates of all displayed objects. |
| Stall plates remain after a holder’s death while other achievements are removed. | College of St George institutional account | The general practice does not reconstruct this photograph’s complete display. |
✦ Your turn
Explain what supports your conclusion.
Choose one visible stall. Inventory its cloth, metal, wood, and plates without naming its holder. Then design a research table connecting each item to a date, inscription, and source. Explain how you would distinguish a permanent memorial from the display of the stall’s current occupant.
Discuss your answer
A strong answer treats the photograph as a dated witness and the College’s account as evidence of practice. It does not reconstruct tinctures from grey values or turn an approximate exposure date into an original installation date. It proposes a documented method for identifying a particular stall.
Take the research further
Compare this view with the 1983 colour photograph in this collection. Record which architectural features can anchor the comparison, which banners are obscured, and which apparent differences could be camera position rather than a change of holder.
Return to the related Academy reading ↗Sources and image rights
- Library of Congress / St George’s Chapel, St. George’s Chapel: Bain News Service photograph, Photograph identifiersLC-B2-4463-12; digital ID ggbain.26050. Record consulted 2026-10-10. The date above describes the artifact or photograph, not the publication date of this webpage.
- Public domain — image rights. The Commons file identifies the Bain photograph as public domain and reproduces the Library of Congress advisory: no known restrictions on publication. This is not a CC0 licence from the chapel. Image credit: Bain News Service / Library of Congress. Photograph’s source and rights record ↗
- College of St George, Heraldry in St George’s Chapel. Institutional explanation of banners, helms, crests, and lasting stall plates. Its illustrated holders are not a current roll call. Consulted 2026-10-10.
- College of St George, Garter Banner List. Institutional account of removal and subsequent locations of banners; consult the linked list’s own revision date. Consulted 2026-10-10.
Show the BibTeX citation
@misc{jhheraldry_object-garter-banners-bain,
author = {{Library of Congress / St George’s Chapel}},
title = {St. George’s Chapel: Bain News Service photograph (Photograph identifiers LC-B2-4463-12; digital ID ggbain.26050)},
howpublished = {\url{https://www.loc.gov/resource/ggbain.26050/}},
url = {https://www.loc.gov/resource/ggbain.26050/},
note = {Original-language photograph record. Accessed 2026-10-10.}
}