A 2005 presentation by Henry Bedingfeld, “English Grants of Arms in America,” summarized by the College of Arms Foundation, shows the surprising extent of the honorary grants of arms to institutions in the U.S. following a 1960 decision to begin making such grants. The list includes a number of schools:

• Georgia State College (1968)
• Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia (1976)
• Winthrop College, South Carolina (1980)
• Middle Georgia College (1983)
• George Washington University, Washington, D.C. (1997)

A sampling of the other institutions:

• Town of Kingston, North Carolina (1960)
• Prince George’s County, Maryland (1976)
• The Commonwealth of Virginia (1976)
• St. Thomas Church in New York City (1975)
• Rich’s Department Store, Atlanta (1967)
• The Mescalero Apache Tribe (1986)

Some of these recipients are surprisingly downbeat about their arms. Winthrop University, as it is called now, has one of those exhaustive graphic standards manuals (pdf) describing how to use its new shield-like logo, but it relegates its genuine coat of arms to one fuzzy black-and-white image at the back. The school’s “Treasures and Traditions” information pdf describes the coat of arms matter-of-factly and does not mention its origin in the College of Arms.

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[Update 01.05.2013: Broken link to Winthrop pdf replaced.]