Sable a chevron or between three pelicans or vulning themselves gules

Gules a chevron ermine between three trefoils slipped argent

The tomb of Thomas Meade, 1585, is in St Nicholas Church, Elmdon, Essex. On his tomb is his coat of arms, as shown above. The same Coat of Arms is depicted in "The history and genealogy of the Mead  family" by Spencer Mead.

On Thomas's tomb is the inscription:
THOME MEADE ARMIGERO SECVNDO IVSTICIARIO DE BANCO HIC HVMATO FIDELISSIMA SVA CONIVX IOHANNA POSVIT OBIT 20 MAII 1585

Translation: Thomas Meade, esquire,
second justice of the Bench, buried here. His most faithful wife Johanna placed (this monument). Died 20th May 1585.

The above is also the Coat of Arms of the Mead family of Buckinghamshire, which included the Reverend Matthew Mead, William Mead, a leading Quaker, and Dr. Richard Mead, physician to George II. There is a memorial to  Dr. Mead in Westminster Abbey. He is buried with his brothers Samuel and James in Temple Church in the Middle Temple.



Burke's Peerage:
General Armory.

Mede or Meade (cos. Cambridge and Cornwall, brass of Sir Philip Mede, St.
Mary Redcliffe, Bristol): Gules a chevron ermine between three trefoils
argent.

Mead: Sable a chevron ermine between three pelicans or vulning themselves proper.

Mead (arms confirmed and crest granted by Hawkins, Ulster, 1706, to Benjamin Mead of Meath Street Dublin, Proctor of the Bishop's Court): Sable on a chevron between three pelicans vulning themselves or, as many martlets of the field. Crest - a pelican in her piety proper.

Meade (Entered Ulster's Office, 1626, Sir John Meade, knight, who married
Katherine Sarsfield, daughter of Dominick Viscount Kilmallocok, and was
ancestor of the Earl of Clanwilliam): Gules a chevron ermine between three
trefoils slipped argent.

Meade (Earl of Clanwilliam): Azure a chevron ermine between three trefoils
slipped argent.

Meade (Ballintober and Ballymantle, co. Cork): Gules a chevron ermine
between three trefoils slipped argent.

Meade (cos. Cambridge and Somerset) Gules a chevron ermine between three trefoils slipped argent

Meade (co. Essex) Sable a chevron between three pelicans or vulned gules.

Meade (London, Thomas Meade, draper, Visitation of London 1568; his daughter Katherine married Thomas Rich, mercer, of London b. 1591): Sable a chevron between three pelicans or vulning themselves proper

Meade (Northborowe/Narborough, co. Leicester; Henry Meade, Visitation of Leicester 1619, eldest son of James Mead, esq. of Northborowe, who was grandson of William Meade esq. of Gretton, co. Stafford): Sable a chevron between three pelicans or wings endorsed or vulning themselves proper.

The Meads from Somerset, Bristol, Cambridge, Essex and London are all related, and the Meads from Leicestershire may be, though I don't know how. The Meades from Ireland are unrelated, and I don't know how they came to have the same coats of arms as the Meads in England.

Azure a chevron ermine between three trefoils slipped argent

The tomb of Thomas, Philip, John and Richard Mede and their wives, dated 1475, in St.Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, contains the upper Coat of Arms. The tomb, about 10 ft high by 18 ft by 3 ft, contains in one compartment the effigies of Philip and his wife and in the other a brass of Richard and his two wives. This rectangular brass shows Richard kneeling with his wife, his first wife behind him. Richard's helmet is in front of him leaving his head uncovered and showing his long hair.

On the left compartment of the the tomb there is a Latin inscription, part of which is missing. The assumed begining is in brackets:

[Here lies Thomas Mede and his wife, and Philip Mede son of the] aforesaid Thomas Mede and thrice mayor of the town of Bristol, died the 20th day of December 1475, may God have mercy on their souls. Amen."

On the right there was once another Latin inscription, which was already obliterated when William Barrett wrote his 18th century history of Bristol. It said:

"Here lies John Mede, burgess of the city of Bristol, who died the 17th day of April A.D.1496, and beside him rests Alice his wife, on whose souls may God have mercy."

Philip Mede's daughter Isabel married Maurice the younger brother of William 2nd Lord Berkeley. He was disinherited for marrying her but later became the 3rd Lord Berkeley. Philip supported the Berkeley family with his men at the last private battle fought on English soil at Nibley Green in 1470. Philip Mede was Mayor of Bristol in 1459, 1462 and 1469. Thomas was once the sheriff and once bailiff of Bristol.

Some branches of the Meade family in Essex also used this Coat of Arms, indicating that they inherited it from "Thomas Mede of Somerset"  who moved from Somerset to Clavering, Essex, and died there in 1504.

Arms like these dating from before 1475 were not granted by the College of Arms but were assumed by the owner. Arms that depicted the family name, such as keys for the name Keyes, were called canting arms. The three trefoils, or clover leaves, suggest a mead or meadow.

The upper Coat of Arms also belongs to the Meades of Co. Cork, Ireland, the Earls of Clanwilliam, whose surname was originally Meagh or Miagh. The lower one belongs to a related family, the Meades of Farley Court and Tisaxon, Ireland.

It has been suggested that the Medes of Bristol came originally from Ireland to handle the family's business in Bristol and Anglicized their name. If this is so, then it would have happened at a very early date, since the Medes of Bristol had lived in the parish of Wraxall, near Bristol, since 1327, if not before. Nicholas atte Mede of Wraxall was assessed for lay subsidies in 1327, making him a contemporary of Philip Meagh, born 1315, the earliest known Meagh of Co. Cork.

It is unclear why the two families have the same Coat of Arms, since they do not seem to be related. The most likely explanation is that the Meaghs of Ireland adopted the Coat of Arms when they Anglicized their name to Meade in the late 16th century.