The Blazon for the Hallam coat of arms cited in Burke’s General Armory is totally incorrect. The Hallam coat of arms does not depict a lion or a bull.

The College of Arms, in London was commissioned to complete a review of their records of grants of coats of arms to Hallams, or variants of Hallam for this paper. They completed a review of the Herald’s Visitations of English and Welsh Counties. Each generation the Heralds were sent out to each county to summon those styling themselves gentlemen or esquires, together with knights and baronets, to appear before them and prove their right to arms. If they could not prove a right to arms by either long usage, or by a later grant or confirmation of arms, they were required to renounce any claim to gentility or to petition for a new grant of arms.

The 1566-1567 and 1580 Visitations of Cheshire in the British Museum, published by the Harleian Society in 1882, indicate that the Arms of Hallum are Pro Hatton. That is, the Hallam coat of arms are on official record in the College of Arms as a quartering of the Hatton family by virtue of their descent from, and belonged to, the Hallams. The records indicate a pedigree of six generations, beginning with the grant of the manor of Hallum in Cheshire to Ranulph de Hallum, Chamberlain to Hugh Keveliock, the fifth Earl of Chester. Ranulph’s son, Sir Hugh de Hallum married the granddaughter of Hugh the Earl of Chesters. The line then passes to John de Hallum, Sir John de Hallum, and then Sir Hugh Hallum and ends with his two daughters and co-heirs, Jone and Elizabeth, who married into families of Hatton of Great Aldesley and Henington, receptively. It should be noted that the prefix "de" was dropped in the fifth generation of this line.

There are also two grants of arms to Hallam after 1672; one to John Hallam, Lieutenant R.N. of the parish of St. Margaret Westminster in 1787, and one to Henry Hallam, Esq. of Bedford Place, Middlesex in 1813. The first of these confirmed the use of a coat of arms on Lieutenant John Hallam and his ancestors. Although Lieutenant Hallam claimed the arms had been long held by the family, a search of two armorials compiled around 1520 and having the status of official College records showed that these arms actually belonged to Sir John Halom of Oxfordshire. While Lieutenant John Hallam, R.N. was granted these arms on the basis of long usage, there is no evidence of that usage, nor was there any record showing his descent from Sir John Haloms who bore the arms some 250 years earlier.

The second granting was to Henry Hallam, the famous Oxford Barrister and Historian and father of Arthur Henry Hallam, his unmarried sister Elizabeth Hallam, and his descendants.. There is a reference in the petition for the coat of arms, that the family had used the arms before being formally granted them without authority. The design of these arms is based on those in the 1566-1567 and 1580 Visitations, suggesting that Henry Hallam has used the older coat of arms prior to new granting being made, and his petition was made to formalize what he was unable to prove as, the family’s right to the arms by descent.

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