Story: Coat of arms

Despite the fact that New Zealand had an officially approved coat of arms from 1911 onwards, a variety of coats of arms were deployed by government agencies in the 1940s – as these examples stocked by the government printer show. At top left is the coat of arms used by the Internal Affairs Department. The state fire insurance office used a version of the royal coat of arms (bottom left). At bottom right is the Department of External Affairs’ version of the New Zealand coat of arms, with the European woman and Māori man facing each other. Other departments tended to use a coat of arms in which the two figures faced outwards (top right).