Starling Benson (1808-1879)

Blazon

Shield: Argent, on a chevron cotised Sable a sun in splendour between two cross crosslets Or , in chief two trefoils slipped of the Second, in base a bear's head erased of the last muzzled and gorged Or.

Starling Benson was Mayor of Swansea 1843-44 and Chairman of the Harbour Trustees and of the Swansea Valley Railway. He was born in Dulwich, the son of Thomas Starling Benson (1775-1858) and his second wife Hannah (née Newberry). Thomas had business interests in south Wales, and this brought Starling to the town. ....

Sources

Bayliffe, Dorothy M., & Harding, Joan N.. Starling Benson of Swansea. Cowbridge; Bridgend : D. Brown & Sons, 1996. ISBN: 9781872808420.
Burke, Bernard, Sir (1814-1892). The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; Comprising a Registry of Armorial Bearings from the Earliest to the Present Time]''. London: 1884.
Hughes, Anthony, and the Swansea U3A iPad team. Discovering your Guildhall. 2nd edition, 2020.
Foster, Joseph. Grantees of arms named in docquets and patents between the years 1687 and 1898, preserved in various manuscripts''] [vol.1], edited by W. Harry Rylands. London : 1916.
Francis, George Grant. Notes on a gold chain of office presented to the Corporation of Swansea in the year 1875 [...]. Swansea, 1876.
The London Gazette, issue 16565, 21 January 1812.
Nicholas, Thomas. Annals and antiquities of the counties and county families of Wales. Vol. 2. London : Longmans, Green, Reader & Co, 1872.
Wikipedia: Society of St.John the Evangelist.