The College shields - School of Medicine

For many years the Imperial College shield was just surrounded by the shields of the three original Constituent Colleges, RCS, RSM and C&G.

After the acquisition of a medical school in 1988 a fourth shield, featuring the fleur-de-lys of Saint Mary’s, was added. The fleur-de-lys, or ‘flower of the lily’, has long been used as a symbol of purity because of the lily’s whiter than white colour. Also, the three "petals" of the fleur-de-lys were used to represent the Holy Trinity. So an association with the Virgin Mary developed and it is for this reason that the Fleur-de-lys substituted earlier crest for St Mary’s which featured a full-length Many and child. This early version is very rarely seen but fortunately, we have one it on display in the form of a plaque behind the bar.

When transformed into the Imperial College School of Medicine in 1997, the fourth shield was replaced. The replacement ICSM shield features the fleur-de-lys of Mary's Hospital and the Maltese Cross of Charing Cross held in the claws of a phoenix wearing a crown. The crown representing the Royal Postgraduate Medical School. The phoenix has long been associated with Imperial College, but here symbolises the resurgence of the combination of colleges arising out of the ashes of the original institutions. Westminster Hospital Medical School (which had already merged with Charing Cross), and the National Heart and Lung Institute are components of ICSM that are not represented in the crest.

Let's pop over to the bar and look at the early Saint Mary's plaque..........