For the historical basis of this English seaside location it is important to first look at its official civic coat of arms, granted in 1891.
At the base of the crest is the Latin motto “Pulchritudo et Salubritas”, literally rendered into English as “Beauty and Health”.
This is a straightforward and picturesque signifier of Bournemouth’s original heritage as a first-rate Victorian resort location.
Bournemouth town crest. (Image: Echo)
In the nineteenth century, holidaymakers and convalescents flocked to this southern coastline to bathe in the clean, sandy beaches and imbibe the supposedly restorative properties of the fresh, pine-filled sea air.
Through its civic motto, the town is forever joined to the beautiful natural scenery and the healing airs that put it on the map.
But a town can’t live on history and sea air alone. That’s where the true intellectual heart of the community comes in.
Bournemouth University formulated its own highly philosophical Latin motto: “Discere Mutari Est”. The English translation is “To Learn is to Change” and neatly shifts the focus from the space of the landscape to the life of the mind.
It’s an emphatic declaration that true education is not merely about memorising academic information.
Instead, it makes learning an inherently transformative process that changes the individual student, and the wider society that they will go on to shape. It’s a forward-looking sentiment that catches the modern, dynamic buzz that thousands of students bring to the local culture every year.
Perhaps nowhere is the town’s emotional and communal character better embodied than by AFC Bournemouth.
Nicknamed the Cherries, in its early years the football club wore the civic coat of arms of Bournemouth on its kits before developing its own unique modern identity.
Bournemouth University crest. (Image: Echo)
The club now embraces the feel-good English motto, “Together, Anything is Possible.”
What would have been little more than a piece of generic sports marketing has in fact turned out to be an authentic testament both to the team’s incredible against-the-odds rise from near-financial collapse to the glitz and glamour of the Premier League, and to the connection between the players on the pitch and the fans in the stands.
Taken as a whole, these three independent maxims form a surprisingly cohesive picture — one that illustrates a place founded upon natural well-being, propelled by the power of learning, and bonded together by the tight-knit community.