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Title: The Romance of the London Directory
Author: Bardsley, Charles W.
Language: English
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DIRECTORY***
Transcribed from the [1899] “Hand and Heart” edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Book cover]
THE ROMANCE
OF
THE LONDON DIRECTORY.
* * * * *
BY
CHARLES W. BARDSLEY, M.A.,
_Vicar of Ulverston_,
AUTHOR OF “ENGLISH SURNAMES,” ETC.
* * * * *
“This Booke containes the names of mortall men;
But thear’s a Booke with characters of golde,
Not writ with incke, with pensill, or with pen,
Wheare Gode’s elect for ever are inrolde,
The Booke of Life; wheare labor thou to bee,
Beefore this Booke hath once re-gistred thee.”
_From a Church Register_.
* * * * *
London:
“HAND AND HEART” PUBLISHING OFFICES,
1, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C.
[_The right of translation is reserved_.]
* * * * *
HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, PRINTERS
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
* * * * *
PREFACE.
WHEN the enterprising and energetic editor of _The Fireside_ wrote
suggesting that he should print my articles on the London Directory,
published at various intervals during the last two years in that
magazine, I was somewhat taken aback. I will candidly confess that half
of them, or thereabouts, were written with some degree of care: I will as
honestly admit that the rest were indited amid the press of heavy
ministerial labours, and had to take their chance, as regards manner,
method, and matter. Nevertheless, I may add that, however wanting in
order and sequence several chapters appeared on paper, I was not afraid
for the accuracy of their contents. My only credit for this, supposing
my lack of fear to be well founded, is that which attaches to diligent
research. The only true means of discovering the origin of our surnames
is to find the earliest form of entry. Light upon that, and half the
difficulty vanishes. This is a means which is as open to any of my
readers as myself—more so in the case of those who dwell in the
metropolis.
I take this opportunity of apologising to many readers of _The
__Fireside_, who have written to me asking for information in respect of
their own, or some other name they were interested in. A few I have been
able to answer; the rest have had to lie by, for I have not had the time
or health to attend to them. I only wish there was the possibility of
this preface meeting the eye of my American cousins. I have a large
batch of letters of inquiry, from the other side of the Atlantic, to
scarcely one of which have I been able to make reply. I feel truly
sorry, for I would not seem to be wanting in courtesy to one of them.
These more distant inquiries have resulted rather from the publication of
“English Surnames” (issued by Messrs. Chatto and Windus, Piccadilly),
than the articles in _The Fireside_. And I would take this opportunity
of recommending such of my readers as have become interested in the
science of nomenclature, through a perusal of these elementary papers, to
study that work. I can do this the more readily as I have no pecuniary
interest in the sale thereof!
Not the least of the pleasures attending the writing of these papers has
been the opportunity it gave me of making personal acquaintance with the
Editor. I trust God will bless him in his most useful enterprise.
ST. MARY’S VICARAGE, ULVERSTON.
[Picture: Decorative graphic]
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
INDIVIDUALIZATION AND LOCALIZATION 9
CHAPTER II.
THE DIVISIONS OF LONDON SURNAMES 24
CHAPTER III.
IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION 41
CHAPTER IV.
ROBIN HOOD AND THE LONDON DIRECTORY 55
CHAPTER V.
EARLY PET NAMES 68
CHAPTER VI.
THE BIBLE AND NOMENCLATURE 82
CHAPTER VII.
OFFICERSHIP 98
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EMPLOYMENTS OF OUR FOREFATHERS 114
CHAPTER IX.
NICKNAMES 132
CHAPTER X.
NICKNAMES (_continued_) 148
[Picture: Decorative graphic]
CHAPTER I.
INDIVIDUALIZATION AND LOCALIZATION.
ALL proverbs are not necessarily true, but that which asserts that “every
man has his hobby” few will gainsay. Nothing in a house so well betrays
this hobby as the owner’s bookcase. It may be large, or it may be small,
but there the secret lies. One man’s hobby is angling, and his shelf
begins with quaint Isaac Walton, and ends with the _Field_ newspaper of
last week. Another has a liking for natural science, and his library is
a _vade mecum_ of its mysteries. A third—oftentimes a lady—loves ferns,
and her study is a little compendium of that curious literature that has
all but wholly sprung up within the present generation. Even the young
lady’s shelf of poems, or novels, or histories, betrays, if not the bent
of her mind, the bias of her education.
My hobby is Nomenclature, and my library betrays my weakness in—what
class of books, do you think?—directories! You would think I was a
postal official. I have London Directories, Provincial Town Directories,
and County Directories. I have even a Paris and a New York Directory.
But herein lies a strange truth. I find as much pleasure in perusing
these directories as any schoolgirl over her first and most sensational
novel. The grand finale of murders, suicides from third-storey windows,
and runaway weddings, all so thrillingly blended, cannot be half so
absorbing to her—not that I recommend her to read such things—as the last
chapter of the London Post Office Directory, from Y to Z, is to me. It
is the conclusion of one of the grandest and most highly wrought romances
ever put together by the ingenuity of man. Oftentimes in the evening I
take it down from my shelf, and I never feel tempted to skip the pages.
Nay, when I have at last got to Z, I can begin at A again with but
freshened interest; for the Directory will bear reading twice.
The London Directory, to every one who has the key that unlocks its
treasures, is at once an epitome of all antiquarian knowledge. In it I
can trace the lives of my countrymen backwards for many a century. In it
is furnished a full and detailed account of the habits and the customs of
my ancestry—the dress they wore, the food they ate, six hundred years
ago; though that it is not so far back as the Welshman’s pedigree, which
hung from his sitting-room ceiling to the floor, and half-way up had a
note to the effect that “about this time Adam was born.” No, I can but
pretend to go up some eighteen or twenty steps of the ladder of my family
nomenclature. Nevertheless, by one glance at your name I can tell
you—unless its spelling be hopelessly corrupted—whether the progenitor of
your race was Scotch, Irish, English, Norman, French, German, or even
Oriental. I can tell you what was his peculiar weakness, or his
particular vocation in life. I can declare the complexion of his hair;
whether he was long or short, straight or crooked, weak or strong. I can
whisper to you what his neighbours thought of him; whether they deemed
him generous or miserly, churlish or courteous. Yes, sometimes I must
tell you unpleasant truths about your great, great, great (_ad
infinitum_) grandfather. For the Directory is remarkably truthful; it
won’t spare anybody, high or low, rich or poor. I have heard people
telling of the greatness of their ancestral name, and the said name on
their visiting card was laughing at them all the time “behind its back.”
I have seen men dwelling in back slums contented with their sphere, and
yet ignorant of the fact that they bore a sobriquet which six centuries
ago would have brought them respect from the king on his throne down to
the humblest cottager in the land. Oh, the ups and downs of life, as
related in this big romance, put to paper by prosaic clerks, who never
smiled at the fun, nor dropped a tear at the distress, simply because
they lacked the manual that should explain its merriment and interpret
its pathos! Hieroglyphics, believe me, are not confined to Egyptian
obelisks or Oriental slabs.
But some reader, perchance, will say, “What do you mean? Is there
anything more in a surname than the individuality it gives to the present
bearer? In itself is it not purely accidental?” Of course it is
accidental. A fossil shell is accidental; but place it in the hand of a
geologist, and he will talk for five days upon it, barring the time he
will want for eating and sleeping. And a surname is a fossil—not
millions of years old, may be, like the shell; only six hundred—still a
fossil, and therefore stereotyping the state and condition of human life
at the period when it came into being. A surname not only gives
individuality to the present bearer, but is a distinct statement of some
condition or capacity enjoyed or endured by the first possessor. An
instance will prove this. Take the name of “Cruikshank.” There must
have been some particular ancestor so designated because he had a
“crooked leg.” That is a fact to start with. Do you want to know where
he lived, and when? Well, there is no great difficulty in the matter.
The very spelling “cruik,” and not “crook,” proves that he was a north
countryman. Is that all? No. The word “shank” shows that he received
this nickname before “leg” had come into ordinary use. _Leg_ is always
used for _shank_ now, yet it is first found in England about the year
1250. It is comparatively modern. Hence there is no surname that I know
of with “leg” as an ingredient. {12} In later days he would have been
called “Bow-leg.” Once more, nickname-surnames are scarcely ever found
to be _hereditary_ before the year 1200. Here then I glean four facts
about “Cruikshank”:—
(1) The first Mr. Cruikshank was bow-legged.
(2) He came from the borders of Scotland, or still more north.
(3) He lived previous to the year 1400.
(4) And not earlier than the year 1200.
I have taken this instance hap-hazard. I might have selected an exacter
illustration, but this will answer my purpose. It is possible my reader
will now say, “But there must be a good substructure of primary knowledge
laid before I can take up the London Directory, and pretend to be
immensely interested in it, and tell my friends what capital reading it
is.” Of course, every true pleasure must be bought, and study will
purchase infinitely higher delights than money can ever do. It is partly
that you may learn how to acquire that necessary elementary knowledge
that I am about to write these short chapters upon the London Directory.
Before I begin, let me say a few words about _personality_ and
_locality_. We should always begin at the beginning. The preacher never
starts at fourthly; soup by some mysterious law ever precedes fish.
Remember, the necessity for individuality has given us our Names. The
need of an address has originated our Directories.
(1) _Individualization_. The word _sur_name means an _added_
name—_i.e._, a sobriquet added to the personal or baptismal name. Why?
Because one was not sufficient to give individuality to the bearer. Adam
and Eve, and Seth, and Abel, and Joseph, and Moses, all were enough while
population was small; but manifestly such simplicity could not last. In
the wilderness there were, say, 2,500,000 Israelites. How could one
suffice there, especially if “Caleb” or “Joshua” had become so popular
that there were, say, 50 or 100 of each in the closely-packed community?
It was not enough: therefore we find a surname adopted, that is, an added
name. “Joshua, the son of Nun”—“Caleb, the son of Jephunneh”—are amongst
the world’s first surnames. In Directory language this is simply “Joshua
Nunson,” or “Caleb Jephunneh.” Simon Barjonas is nothing more than Simon
Johnson. Remember, however, these were not _hereditary_. They died with
their owner, and the child, if there was one, got a surname of his own.
Surnames did not become hereditary in Europe even till the beginning of
the twelfth century, and among the lower classes not till the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries.
Imagine London with, say, 3,000,000 souls, each possessing but one name.
Picture to yourself to-morrow’s post bringing 1000 letters to “Mr. John,”
or “John, Esquire.” We can’t conceive it. No, a surname became an
imperative necessity when population increased, when men herded together,
and communities began to be formed. It is curious to note that some of
these surnames have become so common that they have failed of their
object, and ceased to give individuality. There are 270,000 “Smiths” in
England and Wales, and as many “Joneses.” They would together form a
town as large as Manchester, or separately as big as Leeds. William
Smith scarcely individualizes the bearer now; so he either gets three
names or four names at the font, or his identity is eked out by a
remarkable single name, perchance “Plantagenet,” or “Kerenhappuck,” or
“Napoleon,” or “Sidney.” The worst of it is that “Sidney” was so
greedily fixed upon after it became famous that there are now hundreds of
“Sidney Smiths,” and thus it has ceased to give proper individuality. It
is the same with “John Jones.” The Registrar-General says that if “John
Jones” were called out at a market in Wales, either everybody would come,
or nobody: either everybody, thinking that you meant each, or nobody,
because you had not added some description which should distinguish the
particular John Jones you wanted. I remember at college two John Joneses
went in for examination for the “little go.” Both belonged to the same
college; one passed, the other did not. The one who got first to the
schools bore away his certificate in triumph. The one who came last
always declared that his _confrère_ had robbed him of his “testamur,” and
I have no doubt will die assured of the same! I believe a day will come
when, either by compulsory enactment or by voluntary arrangement, there
will be a redistribution of surnames in Wales; the sooner the better.
(2) _Localization_. So much for the personality; now for locality. It
is one thing to know the name of the man you want; it is another thing to
know where you can find him. In a word, where does he live? “Go into
the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas
for one called Saul, of Tarsus,” says the Divine Book. This would not be
enough in the nineteenth century. There are streets a mile long now.
There are restaurants above the shops, and offices above the restaurants,
and the old woman who cleans the building above them all. How is Mrs.
Betsy Pipps to be found of her friends? Yet a letter from her daughter
in the country about the cows and the turnips has as much right to find
its way to that top room in the murky city as a posted document about
Turkey and Russia to Lord Derby in that big place a little further on.
One of the greatest transformations the streets of London ever saw was
when the signboards were taken down. These were at first adopted purely
to localize the inhabitant of the house pendent from whose wall the
signboard swung. Until the reign of Queen Anne, the streets could
scarcely be seen further than a few yards because of these innumerable
obstructions. They darkened the streets, obscured the view, and
threatened the very lives of the horsemen who rode along. The personal
discomfort to wayfarers was great, for not only did the rain drip
unpleasantly from them, but the wooden spouts, which frequently shot
forward from the roof in order that the signboard might swing from them,
poured their little cataracts upon the devoted heads of the passers-by.
This infliction was patiently endured for several centuries; but the
British ratepayer at last made his voice heard, as in the end he always
does. This time, too, he had right on his side, as he invariably thinks
he has, and an alteration took place. The ruling powers ordered the
obnoxious signs to be placed flat against the walls. The idea of
removing them entirely was reserved for a more brilliant intellect a few
years later on. I have not yet seen the printed regulation for the
metropolis, but no doubt the Manchester document was but a copy of it.
The declaration issued for that town runs as follows: “With the
approbation and concurrence of the magistrates, we, the borough reeve and
constables, request the shopkeepers and innholders of this town, who have
not already taken down their signs, to do the same as soon as possible,
and place them against the walls of their houses, as they have been long
and justly complained of as nuisances. They obstruct the free passage of
the air, annoy the passengers in wet weather, darken the streets,
etc.,—all which inconvenience will be prevented by a compliance with our
request, and be manifestly productive both of elegance and utility.”
Of the utility there could be no doubt. In wet weather, as already
hinted, everybody who had a coat collar had to turn it up to prevent each
swinging sign from dripping the rain-water down the back of the neck.
Umbrellas were still rare, costly, and curious luxuries. In a word, the
swinging sign was voted an intolerable nuisance, was found guilty, and
condemned—not to the gallows, of course, for the charge against it was
that it had been hanging there to the public detriment all its days—but
to oblivion. I daresay London had made away with many of its cumbersome
signboards many years before the provincial towns. It is curious to note
that in a hundred different nooks and corners of old London there still
linger some of the tradesmen’s signs, either flattened against the wall,
or carved upon the now crumbling stonework.
There are endless allusions to the signs of old London in the comic or
semi-comic rhymes of the period. Thomas Heywood, early in the
seventeenth century, says:—
“The gintry to the _King’s Head_,
The nobles to the _Crown_,
The knights unto the _Golden Fleece_,
And to the _Plough_ the clowne.
The Churchman to the _Mitre_,
The shepherd to the _Star_,
The gardener hies him to the _Rose_,
To the _Drum_ the man of war.”
There is a capital collection of these names in a ballad of the
Restoration, which is far too long to quote in full, but of which the
following is a specimen:—
“Through the Royal Exchange as I walked,
Where gallants in sattin doe shine,
At midst of the day they parted away,
To seaverall places to dine.
The ladyes will dine at the _Feathers_,
The _Globe_ no captaine will scorne,
The huntsman will goe to the _Greyhound_ below,
And some will hie to the _Horne_.
The farriers will to the _Horse_,
The blacksmith unto the _Locke_,
The butchers unto the _Bull_ will goe,
And the carmen to Bridewell _Clocke_.
The pewterers to the _Quarte Pot_,
The coopers will dine at the _Hoope_,
The coblers to the _Last_ will goe,
And the bargemen to the _Sloope_.
The goldsmith will to the _Three Cups_,
For money they hold it as drosse;
Your Puritan to the _Pewter-canne_,
And your Papists to the _Crosse_.
Thus every man in his humour,
That comes from the northe or the southe;
But he that has no money in his purse
May dine at the signe of the _Mouth_.”
Again, Pasquin, in his “Night-cap,” says:—
“First there is Maister Peter at the _Bell_,
A linen draper, and a wealthy man;
Then Maister Thomas that doth stockings sell,
And George the grocer at the _Frying Pan_.
And Maister Miles the mercer at the _Harrow_,
And Maister Mike the silkman at the _Plow_,
And Maister Nicke the Salter at the _Sparrow_,
And Maister Dicke the vintner at the _Cow_.”
Another jingling rhyme began:—
“I’m amused at the signs
As I pass through the town,
To see the odd mixture,—
A ‘Magpie and Crown,’
The ‘Whale and the Crow,’
The ‘Razor and Hen,’
The ‘Leg and Seven Stars,’
The ‘Scissors and Pen,’
The ‘Axe and the Bottle,’
The ‘Tun and the Lute,’
The ‘Eagle and Child,’
The ‘Shovel and Boot.’”
These double signs were very common, and are easily explained.
Now-a-days a man who has taken the goodwill of a well-established shop
paints over the door “Snooks, late Jopson, Chemist.” The apprentice in
old days added his own badge to that of his late master, and the
signboard displayed perhaps the “Mermaid and Gridiron,” or the “Leg and
Crow,” the old sign being linked to the new.
The reader may think I have dwelt somewhat long upon this matter; but I
am writing about localization, and these signboards in their day were the
only means of identifying the London tradesman. Names and numbers were
practically useless. How small a proportion of the London population
could read even two hundred years ago! Mr. Baxter might have “Baxter” in
the largest gilt characters over his front; he might further add that he
made and sold that newly-discovered luxury tobacco on the counter
within,—but how many of the passers-by would be any the wiser! But if he
had a large swinging board at the end of a pole, facing the wayfarers,
with a huge Turk’s head with a pipe in its mouth, there was none but
could tell his occupation. Sometimes the real article was exhibited.
The hosier would dangle a pair of stockings from his pole. Thus it was
that every shopkeeper was known by his sign. The housewife would send
little Tom to the “Cock,” or the “Three Cranes,” or the “Ark,” or the
“Hand-in-hand” for her little domestic wants, where now she would bid him
run to “Tomkins’,” or “Sawyer’s,” or “Robinson’s.” In course of time the
sign did not always harmonize with the articles sold within, but it was
quite enough for the neighbours dwelling around. What an array of
creaking posts and grotesque frames must there not have been along the
leading thoroughfares, such as Cheapside, and old London Bridge! and
leaving out the question of discomfort, and the perils of a broken head
if you drove on a coach, what a picturesque scene it must have been!
I dare not say what a large proportion of names in the London Directory
that look like nicknames must be set down as the result of this
old-fashioned custom. The fourteenth century saw London streets looking
as if hung with bannerets, so crowded were they with signs. That was a
period when half of the lower middle class were still without an
hereditary surname. The consequence is, we find such entries as “Hugh
atte Cokke,” or “Thomas atte Ram,” or “Thomas del Hat,” or “Margery de
Styrop.” The reader must see at a glance that we have here the
origination of half our “Cocks” and “Coxes,” “Rams,” “Roebucks,” “Tubbs,”
“Bells,” “Crows.” There are three “Hatts” to forty-one “Heads,” three
“Pates” and two “Crowns” in the London Directory, not to mention three
“Harrows,” two “Plows,” four “Boots,” and ten “Pattens.” All these, and
a hundred other names that appear difficult of origination, are easily
explained when we recall this faded custom of a few centuries ago.
The plan of having numbered doors came into use but very recently. The
signboards were disused in many parts of London before numerals were
instituted. The addresses on letters appeared very strange as a
consequence.
John Byrom, the great epigrammatist, writing to his wife from Cambridge
in 1727, addresses his letter to “Mistress Eliz. Byrom, near the old
Church, in Manchester.” That was the ordinary method, to choose some big
well-known building, and state your friends’ position to it by the
compass. The first Directory ever published, of any pretensions, was
Kent’s, in 1736. “The Directory,” it is called, “sold by Henry Kent, in
Finch Lane, near the Royal Exchange.” It contains about 1200 names, all
the tradesmen and merchants of London. There are such entries as “Samuel
Wilson, hardwareman, in Cannon Street, the corner of Crooked Lane,” or
“John Bradshaw, opposite the Monument, at a barber’s.”
Manifestly this could not go on. In the edition for 1770 occurs the
following: “The Directory . . . with the numbers as they are affixed to
their houses, agreeable to the late Acts of Parliament.” The Legislature
had had to take the matter into hand. London was getting far too big for
indistinct addresses such as these. The first street in the metropolis
to possess numbered doors was New Burlington Street. This was
accomplished in June 1764. Other important throughfares followed suit,
and before ten years had gone by, we find the Directory particularizing
as follows: “John Trelawney, haberdasher, No. 22, Nightingale Lane,” or
“Hamnett Townley, hop merchant, No. 69, Great Tower Street.”
Occasionally a “Vincent Trehearn, hatmaker, behind St. Thomas’s,” comes,
but rarely; and by-and-by such entries disappear altogether. Manchester
began the same practice in 1772, at the request of the borough reeve and
constable, and was the second town in the kingdom to adopt the practice.
It was reserved for the year 1877 to put a climax, I think, to ingenuity
of this kind. In Manchester, probably in London also, there are
lamp-post Directories. You cannot always have a Directory at your elbow.
Even this difficulty is remedied by the lamp-post Directory. The names
of all shopkeepers in that particular street wherein the lamp-post stands
are printed alphabetically on a circular tablet, which revolves round the
post. You turn it round till you find the name you want.
What ingenious creatures we are! Well might our great poet say, “What a
piece of work is man! how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties!”
Well might one greater than William Shakespear declare, “Thou hast made
him a little lower than the angels”! The ingenuity of man has created
the surprises of history.
CHAPTER II.
THE DIVISIONS OF LONDON SURNAMES.
WE have explained the origin of surnames as an institution. We have
shown that as the population of the earth increased, and mankind began to
form themselves into closely-packed communities, a demand arose for a
more distinct individuality. As a consequence, men took an additional
sobriquet; or rather, it was fixed on them by their neighbours, for in
nine cases out of ten the bearer had no voice in the matter.
The peculiar feature of our earlier surnames is that they were _not
hereditary_—father, mother, daughters, sons, and even the grandchildren,
might all be living at the same time, in the same hamlet, even under the
same roof, and yet possess each a distinct sobriquet, which was the mark
of their identity. Let us first draw out an imaginary pedigree, and then
quote from a real one.
[Picture: Pedigree of Richard of Colton] {25}
This would have to be the kind of family tree drawn out among our country
yeomen and town merchants, from say 1200 to 1450, after which date we may
begin to look for hereditary surnames. The great-grandfather, Richard,
is known by the village in which his house is situate. Of three sons the
eldest, Richard, is distinguished from Richard his father by his small
stature. He becomes therefore Richard Little in the common parlance of
his neighbours. The second son, William, has taken charge of the village
pound for strayed cattle. He is known as William atte Pound (_i.e._ at
the Pound). The third son, Henry, has very light hair, almost white,
although he is still but a youth. This being somewhat remarkable, causes
him to be distinguished from all other Henrys in the same community by
the sobriquet of Henry Whitehead. Of the third generation, William atte
Pound has two sons, one of whom, Bartholomew, becomes a servitor of more
menial rank in the great baron’s castle hard by. Of course he becomes
Bartholomew Page. The other John stays at home to help his father.
Naturally he is better recognised by his filial relationship than his
brother, and becomes John William’s son, and by-and-by John Williamson.
But Henry Whitehead has a son also, and as Hawkin or Halkin was then the
pet form of Henry, Adam, the son, becomes Adam Hawkins. The fourth
generation will now be beyond the need of explanation.
Take now a real pedigree from Camden:—
[Picture: Pedigree of William Belward of Malpas] {26}
There is nothing that needs explanation in this pedigree except Philip’s
surname of Gough. The family residence was at Malpas, as seen above.
This was on the Welsh frontier. Gough is the Welsh for “red,” so that
Philip had evidently got his surname or nickname amongst the Cambrian
population from his ruddy complexion.
We are now well on the way to survey the groups or classes into which the
surnames in the London Directory can be divided. Nothing can simplify
the study of nomenclature so readily as a consideration of the classes
into which surnames may be placed. If the reader will turn to the
imaginary pedigree of the Colton family, he will see that the ten
surnames therein contained may be set under five heads. Richard of
Colton, William atte Pound, and James Bentham, are known by a
_place-name_; John Williamson, Adam Hawkins and Alice Adams by the
_father’s Christian name_; Richard the Baker by his daily _occupation_;
Bartholomew the Page by his _official capacity_; and Richard the Little
and Henry Whitehead by a sobriquet having reference to their _personal
appearance_. Here, then, are five distinct classes. There is not a
surname in the London Directory, nor in England, nor in Europe, nor in
the whole known or unknown world, that cannot be placed, and placed
correctly, under one of the five heads that I have thus foreshadowed:—(1)
Local names. (2) Baptismal names. (3) Names of occupation. (4)
Official names. (5) Nicknames. The first of these to become
_hereditary_ were the Norman local names. Many of the Conqueror’s
followers took or received as a surname the title of the place they left
in Normandy. He who left the chapelry of St. Clair across “the silver
streak” settled in England as “William, or Robert de St. Clair.” In
course of time this became “Sinclair” and “Sinkler;” just as “St. Denis”
became “Sidney;” “St. Pierre,” “Spier” and “Spiers;” or “St. Leger,”
“Selinger.” “Sinkler” is as vile a corruption of “Sinclair” as “Boil”
from “Boyle.” Some folk say, “What’s in a name?” One thing is clear:
there is a good deal in the spelling of it. These local names, however,
were the first hereditary names in England. But the Normans introduced
representatives of all five classes. Take a single instance of each.
Norman-English. Saxon-English.
I. Local Sidney Burton.
II. Baptismal Fitz-Hamon Jenkinson.
III. Occupative Taylor Baker.
IV. Official Chamberlain Steward.
V. Nicknames Fortescue Sheepshanks.
“Fortescue” means “brave” or “strong shield.” Hence the family motto has
a punning allusion: “_Forte Scutum_, salus ducum,”—_i.e._, “A strong
shield is the safety of leaders.” If we take a glimpse at any village
roll four hundred years ago, representatives of all these classes will
invariably be found, although the _baptismal_ and _local_ will largely
predominate. Look at the “Custom Roll and Rental of the Manor of
Ashton-under-Lyne, 1422” (Chetham Society Publications).
I. Local Robert of Chadwick Thomlyn of the
Leghes.
II. Baptismal Tomlyn Diconson Robyn Robynson.
III. Occupative Roger the Baxter Richard the
(Baker) Smith.
IV. Official Jak the Spenser William
Somaster
(Summaster).
V. Nicknames Elyn the Rose Hobbe the
Kynge.
Every secluded village in England at this moment, every churchyard with
its simple epitaphs, every vestry register with its recorded births and
marriages and deaths, contains representatives of these several
divisions. When we come to such a big place as the metropolis, a little
world of itself, we expect to find these classes largely exhibited. I
have taken the trouble to analyse the first five letters of the alphabet
in the London Directory. Curious are the results. We may premise that
there are about 120,000 names in the _Commercial_ list. My analysis
concerns about 30,000 of these—that is, exactly one-fourth.
A. B. C. D. E. Total.
Local 915 5093 3259 1377 716 11,360
Baptismal 1763 1647 1535 1935 1323 8203
Occupative 37 899 1546 169 — 2651
Official 139 575 949 48 26 1737
Nicknames 45 2089 685 210 67 3096
(Foreign) 184 569 293 419 119 1584
(Doubtful) 120 850 476 193 56 1694
Total 3203 11,722 8743 4351 2307 30,326
Without some further explanation, these figures will seem utterly
incongruous. I make no apology for the somewhat large number of doubtful
instances. Those who have studied this subject will consider it small.
Notice under “A,” the _baptismal_ names are double all other classes
added together; while under “B,” the _local_ names, excluding doubtful
instances (a large proportion of which must be local), are also double
the rest. This is easily explained. Five hundred years ago some
Christian names were enormously popular. Andrew was one. Under the
forms of Andrews and Anderson, etc., we have a total of 290 names. Allen
was another. There are 250 “Allens” {29} in London, without adding other
forms of the name. There is no _local_ name under “A” to compare with
these. Under “B” this position is reversed. Of _local_ names there are
about 142 Barnes, 56 Bartons, 37 Becks, 85 Berrys, 55 Boltons, 44 Booths,
58 Bradleys, 120 Brooks, besides a large list of lesser but fairly
proportionate names. _Baptismal_ names under “B” are not so fortunate.
’Tis true there are 70 Barnards, 66 Balls (Baldwin), 83 Bartletts
(Bartholomew), 52 Bates (Bartholomew), 199 Bennetts (Benedict and
Benjamin), and 40 Batemans (an old English baptismal name), but with
these the list is well-nigh exhausted. Under “C” the _occupative_ class
is larger than the baptismal. This would be unaccountable did we not
remember that there are no less than 283 Cooks and Cookes, 265 Coopers,
221 Carters, 64 Chandlers, 51 Carpenters, and 35 Cartwrights in the
Directory. Under “C,” too, the _official_ class is very strongly
represented. There are about 520 Clerks, Clarks, and Clarkes, not to
mention 120 Cohens and Cohns (_i.e._, priest), which, though of Jewish
origin, are not set down in the foreign list, inasmuch as the vast
majority of them have sprung from Cohens settled in England for
centuries; indeed, a large number of them pass for pure English blood.
_Nicknames_ are best exhibited under “B,” for there are no less than 650
forms of Brown in the London Directory alone, not to mention 160 Bells
and 120 Bishops—one hundred and twenty Bishops in London! This beats all
the episcopal conferences of modern times hollow. By-and-by I shall
explain why “Bishop,” and such names as “Pope,” “Cardinal,” “Prince,” and
“King,” must be set in the nickname class. I now may note the fact, and
pass on. With respect also to the 160 Bells, we must not forget that
they have three distinct origins. The following registered forms are
found five hundred years ago:—“Peter le Bel” (_i.e._, the handsome),
“Richard fil. Bell” (_i.e._, the son of Bell, _i.e._ Isabella), and “John
atte Bell” (_i.e._, at the Bell, the sign-name at some country hostel).
Our friends the Bells may choose which they like. I should select the
first, I think, but tastes may differ. Again, notice under “_E_” that
the _baptismal_ names far outnumber the aggregate of all other classes,
the _occupative_ being without a representative at all! The popularity
of Edward and Elias (always called Ellis) has done this. There are about
330 Edwards in London; and adding together the different forms of Ellis,
such as Elliot (the pet name of Ellis), Eliot, Elliotson, Ellice, Ellicot
(the pet form of Ellice), Ellison, Elkins, Elkinson, Elcock, Ell, Else,
Elson, and a dozen other dresses in which the name is arrayed, all of
which I shall explain hereafter, we have no less than 370 representatives
of Elias. That the Crusades brought “John” and “Elias” into favour in
England is easily proved, and I shall have a word to say about the matter
in another chapter. There are a hundred interesting remarks to make
about such names as these, if one allowed oneself to be tempted out of
the beaten track, but I control myself. Notice lastly, that under “D”
one-tenth of the names are foreign—that is, of recent importation from
the Continent. The explanation of such a large proportion is that very
many foreign local surnames preserve the “de,” or “del,” or “de la,” as a
prefix. “De Jersey,” “De Grelle,” “Delattre,” “Delcroix,” “Delavanti;”so
they run.
In concluding this chapter, the question may be asked—and a very
important one it is—how many differently spelled names, counting a single
spelling as one, are there in each class? The answer to this will show
the vast predominance of local names in our Directories. If we exclude
foreign (nearly all local) and doubtful (of which three-fifths must be
looked upon as local), then the local class under A, B, C, D, and E, is
double all the rest. We may prejudge that this ratio applies to the
whole alphabet.
Local. Baptismal. Occupation. Official. Nickname. Foreign. Doubtful. Total.
A 153 120 9 8 4 101 41 436
B 917 158 86 43 120 307 176 1807
C 952 168 100 48 122 231 173 1794
D 310 174 17 6 40 336 75 958
E 255 149 0 2 13 92 29 540
Total 2587 769 212 107 299 1067 494 5535
Thus the total number of distinct surnames in the London Directory under
the first five letters is 5535. Omitting foreign and doubtful, the local
class are double the rest. Therefore the rhyme quoted by Camden is true,
that
“In ‘ford,’ in ‘ham,’ in ‘ley,’ and ‘ton,’
The most of English surnames run.”
All names with this termination are local, and comprise a large
proportion of our national nomenclature.
One word about the doubtful class, and I have done. A hundred years ago
even, as our registers show, there was no established orthography for
surnames in the highest ranks of society. How much less so, then, among
the illiterate orders! I find a clergyman’s name, Bann, spelled Bann,
Ban, Banne, and Band between 1712 and 1736. He was Rector of St. Ann’s,
Manchester, during that period. The spelling of Shakespear’s name at
this moment is the subject of almost bitter conflict. Being clearly of
the nickname class, my view is that it must be written “Shakespear.”
Illiterate clerks have done much to obscure the meaning and origin of
names. I know a register where the clerk has written “Pickering” as
“Pikrin,” and on the next page informs the reader that several names have
been “rong placeed.” “Pamela” he inscribes as “Permelea.” Butcher is
found in the London Directory in the following forms:—“Boucher,”
“Bowcher,” “Bowker,” “Bosher,” “Bowsher,” “Bowser,” “Boutcher,” and
“Botcher.” The Norman “Chesney” (equivalent to English “Oakes”) is found
as “Cheney,” “Chaney,” “Cheyney,” “Chesney;” and “Chesnil” as “Chisnall,”
“Chisnell,” and “Channell.” Thus, too, “Solomon” becomes “Slowman” and
“Sloman.” Sir William Dugdale found the Cheshire “Mainwarings” in no
less than 131 forms; but this will not seem so strange when we consider
that they include “Mainwayringe,” “Meinilwarin,” and “Mensilwaren”!
I could furnish endless instances of names that have undergone
corruptions of this kind through defective spelling, and the lack of a
standard orthography. Few people would recognise Oursley as Ursula, but
that is a common form in the seventeenth century, when that was one of
our commonest girl names. In Hokington Church, under date 1611, occurs
the following entry:—
“George, sonne of Fenson Benet, and Jane, baptised.”
A previous Rector had been one Vincent Goodwin, and being popular, many
of his parishioners had had children christened after him. The form
entered is invariably Fenson, and I dare say after a generation or two
none of the less educated would know what the original name had been. In
the Calendar of Pleadings we find that one Quintin Snaneton, of Gringley
Manor, made three several suits within ten years—all in the reign of Good
Queen Bess. He is thus entered on each occasion:—
1. (15th Eliz.) Quyntine Sneydon of Gringley Manor.
2. (20th Eliz.) Quintin Snaneton of Grinley Manor.
3. (25th Eliz.) Quyntin Sneyton of Grynley Manor.
Thus there are three distinct variations of Christian name, surname, and
place of residence,—nine in all, when only nine were possible! This,
too, in a formal legal document. Take another instance given to me by J.
Paul Rylands, F.S.A. In Edward the Third’s reign lived one Henry le
Machun by name. His son was Adam le Machoun. Passing downwards, his
descendants are found as Macound, Macount, Macont, till in 1584 they are
Macon, a year later Maconde. In 1592 they are Makant, and Makont, in
1609 Macante, in 1610 Makin, in 1620 Macond, in 1624 Meacon, in 1626
Meakin, in 1644 Macant, in 1650 Meakyn. We are in a perfect wilderness
by the time the last entry is reached,—and thus some of our present
Makins, instead of deriving their surname from Makin, the once pet name
of Matthew, may be descended from Mason, which, belonging to a totally
different class, owes its existence to the occupation of its first
bearer. Thus, as we turn over the pages of the London Directory, we are
being ever struck by the many guises under which one single name may
appear. It is palpable to the most uninitiated that Langwith, Langworth,
and Langworthy are all the same, and that all _may have_ had the same
common ancestor. The merest tyro in nomenclatural knowledge must
recognise at a glance that Gibbins, Gibbings, and Gibbons are one and the
same name, and that Smithers, Smithies, and Smithyes may have boasted a
common progenitor. There is no Raleigh in the London Directory. Has,
then, Sir Walter no representative? Yes, for there are three Rawleys,
who have learnt to spell their name as it was _pronounced_ three
centuries ago. But how do we know Sir Walter’s name was pronounced like
Rawley? The following skit was written at the poet’s expense by a
contemporary critic, who attacked his supposed atheistic notions. We may
premise that _Walter_ was always pronounced _Water_ then.
“_Water_ thy plants with grace divine,
And hope to live for aye:
Then to thy Saviour Christ incline,
In Him make stedfast stay.
_Raw_ is the reason that doth _lie_
Within an atheist’s head,
Which saith the soul of man doth die,
When that the body’s dead.
Now may you see the sudden fall
Of him that thought to climb full high;
A man well known unto you all,
Whose state, you see, doth stand _Rawly_.”
The last word is supposed to mean “rarely,” and thus a double pun is
attempted, both proving the name to have been pronounced in a fashion not
common now.
But while these names can be traced to their true source and meaning, it
is not so with others. Take the following from the London
Directory:—“Six,” “Seven,” “Nine,” “Spon,” “Spitty,” “Kiss,” “Slape,”
“Im,” “Ey,” “Tattoo,” “Tubby,” “Yewd,” “Zox,” “Toop,” “Kitcat,” “Sass,”
“Knags,” “Neeb,” “Siggs,” “Saks,” “Toy,” “Stidd,” “Stap,” and
“Shum,”—what do they mean? Whence came they? Ask the bearers, and they
will say, no doubt, that they came over with William the Conqueror. They
are not the only people who have tried to come William the Conqueror over
us.
In this last list we have mentioned “Kiss.” This reminds me that there
is one instance in the same tome much more demonstrative than
that—namely, “Popkiss”! But there is no difficulty in deciphering this,
as it is a manifest corruption of Popkins, and that of Hopkins. The
Directory teems with examples of the termination _kins_ being turned into
_kiss_ and again into _ks_. Thus we have not merely Perkins, but Perkiss
and Perks—not only Hodgkins, but Hotchkiss—not alone Wilkins, but Wilks;
and so oh with many others.
While some surnames are hopelessly corrupted, and therefore incapable of
interpretation, others are a stumbling-block because they seem so easily
explainable. Such are names like “Coward,” “Craven,” and “Charley.” The
“Coward,” or Cowherd, was a tender of kine; “Craven” is local; and
“Charley” is the same. “Deadman” and “Dedman” are, like “Debnam,” but
corruptions of “Debenham,” and therefore local also. “Tiddyman” looks as
if its first bearer had been tidy in his habits; but it was once a
Christian name, and therefore is a patronymic. “Massinger” has been not
uncommonly explained as Mass-singer. Of course it is the early form of
“Messenger.” “Diamond” is a form of “Dumont,” and “Doggrell” of
“Duckerell”—that is, little duck, a manifest nickname. “Eatwell” and
“Early” are also both of local origin. “Portwine” is first found as
“Poitevin,” the old name for an inhabitant of Poictiers; and “Coleman,”
though apparently connected with the black diamond, is an early baptismal
name. There is a peculiar tendency to skip the natural solution, and go
to the Continent, especially Normandy, for the origin. Thus “Twopenny,”
a palpable relic of the twopenny piece, and twopenny ale, is represented
as hailing from Tupigny in Flanders. “Death” is said to be from D’Aeth
in the same; “Bridges” from Bruges; and “Morley” from Morlaix, where
lived St. Bernard—regardless of the fact that there are a dozen hamlets
styled “Morley” in England; indeed, wherever there is a moorland reach
there is a village or farm styled “Morley.”
A lady wrote to me the other day to inform me that I had made a mistake
in ascribing the name “Mason” to the craftsman of that name, for she was
sure she was sprung from Mnason in the Acts of the Apostles, and that the
family had worked its way through Phrygia, and Italy, and Germany, into
England. If she can prove her pedigree, she may boast a genealogy which
the proudest monarch in Europe might envy. The fact is, it is as true of
a hundred reputed foreign names as of the rhyme of the three Devonshire
families, which asserts that
“‘Croker,’ ‘Crewys,’ and ‘Coplestone,’
When the Conqueror came were at home.”
What a pleasant book to look upon would our Directory be if we had all
had the selection of our own surnames! There would have been no
“Pennyfathers.” This was an old English nickname for a miser. An old
couplet says,—
“The liberall doth spend his pelfe,
The pennyfather wastes himself.”
That such a disposition need not be hereditary is proved in the case of
one of the most generous, earnest Christian ministers who ever worked for
Christ in London. Mr. Pennefather is dead; but who would think of
connecting him with the characteristic his name implies? Again, there
would have been no “Piggs,” no “Rakestraws” (an old nickname for a
dust-heap searcher), no “Milksops,” no “Buggs,” no “Rascals.” But the
fact is, the man who had most interest in the matter had least to do with
it. All he could do was to accept his sobriquet, if not with thanks,
with such grace as he could muster. If his children could shuffle it
off, so much the better. Our Directory proves that this was not always
possible. ’Tis true, we have got rid of “Alan Swet-in-bedde’s” _nominal_
descendants, not to mention such cognomens as “Cheese-and-bread,”
“Scutel-mouth” (what a great eater he must have been!) “Red-herring,”
“Drink-dregs,” “Cat’s-nose,” “Pigg’s-flesh,” “Spickfat” (_i.e._
bacon-fat), “Burgulion” (a braggart), and “Rattlebag.” But many of these
names made a hard fight for it, and contrived to hold out till the
seventeenth, or even eighteenth, century. “Piggs-flesh,” I say, is gone;
but “Hog’s-flesh” has been a name familiar to Brighton and its
neighbourhood for six hundred years, and still lives. Charles Lamb’s
little comedy, called “Mr. H.—” (_i.e._, Hog’s-flesh), had for its hero’s
sobriquet no fanciful title. No doubt Mr. Lamb had seen the name in a
Sussex Directory. The story is a relation of Mr. H.’s troubles in polite
society through the attempt to hide his name under the mere initial.
When it is discovered, everybody deserts him. As he quits his hotel, his
landlord says:—
“Hope your honour does not intend to quit the ‘Blue _Boar_.’ Sorry
anything has happened.”
_Mr. H._ (to himself): “He has heard it all.”
_Land._: “Your honour has had some mortification, to be sure, as a
man may say. You have brought your pigs to a fine market.”
_Mr. H._: “Pigs!”
_Land._: “What then? Take old Pry’s advice, and never mind it.
Don’t scorch your crackling for ’em, sir.”
_Mr. H._: “Scorch my crackling! A queer phrase; but I suppose he
don’t mean to affront me.”
_Land._: “What is done can’t be undone; you can’t make a silken purse
out of a sow’s ear.”
_Mr. H._: “As you say, landlord, thinking of a thing does but augment
it.”
_Land._: “Does but _hogment_ it, indeed, sir.”
_Mr. H._: “_Hogment_ it! I said _augment_ it.”
_Land._: “Ah, sir, ’tis not everybody has such gift of fine phrases
as your honour, that can lard his discourse.”
_Mr. H._: “Lard!”
_Land._: “Suppose they do smoke you—”
_Mr. H._: “Smoke me!”
_Land._: “Anon, anon.”
_Mr. H._: “Oh, I wish I were anonymous!”
It is curious to notice that many objectionable names still exist, simply
because the words themselves have become obsolete, and the meaning
forgotten. We will leave them in their obscurity.
CHAPTER III.
IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION.
I SAID in my last chapter that nearly half of the names in the London
Directory are of local origin, and I proved my statement by an appeal to
certain figures. We have not all the brand of Cain on our brow, but
certainly man has ever been “a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.”
History, sacred and profane, teems with the records of the flights of
nations from one land to another. From the days of the Israelites’
escape from Egypt to the flight of the Huguenots from France, there have
been emigrations which have been the direct results of persecution. From
the year that saw Babel erected and the language confounded, the races of
mankind have struck out a path for themselves in one direction or another
of the earth’s vast continent. The curious feature is this,—It is to the
_dictionary_ we must go to discover whence each several horde set forth.
The _language_ of every nation clearly tells where lies the cradle of its
birth.
But emigration and immigration lie not alone with nationalities. The
world has not always been a vagabond _en masse_. From the day that Jacob
started for the East to find his uncle, from the morn that saw Ruth
clinging to Naomi, while she said, “Whither thou goest I will go, and
where thou lodgest I will lodge,” there has ever been going on a wondrous
silent efflux or influx of _individual_ wanderers. Just as the
mother-bird at the proper time, with seeming stern but true maternal
instinct, pushes out her fledgling brood to seek a home and sustenance
for themselves, so it has ever been with man. To go forth and replenish
the earth has been a Divine fiat which none could forego. And what the
_dictionary_ is to the nation, the _directory_ is to the individual. In
the name of each we know the land, the city, the hamlet, whence each set
forward to battle with the world. At any rate, this is strictly true of
all local surnames.
In the course of the last six hundred years there has not been a single
village or town in England that has not found its representative in
London. “All roads lead to the capital,” says an old proverb. How true
this is, the London Directory shows; for at this moment it would be hard
to mention a place, big or small, from John o’ Groats to Land’s End,—the
Dan and Beersheba of England,—whose name is not found therein as the
title of some individual whose ancestor, long generations ago, left his
native home to settle in what was, even then, the big city. I was struck
the other day by seeing two shops adjacent, the shopkeepers’ names on the
doors being “Dearnally” and “Dennerley.” Dearnally and Dennerley! What
a curious circumstance! My mind went back six centuries, and I wove a
little story. Six hundred years ago, two brothers, or schoolfellows, or
playmates, leave the little secluded hamlet of Dearnley. {43} One is
John, the other William. John goes to Bristol. “Whence come you?” say
his Bristol associates. “From Dearnley,” he replies. Henceforward he is
John o’ Dearnley, by-and-by to become simple John Dearnley. “Whence come
you?” says a Norwich artisan to William, who has turned his steps
eastwards. “From Dearnley: I wonder shall I see it again,” responds
William, sadly, who is already home-sick,—for homes were homes then as
well as now. Henceforth he is William o’ Dearnley, or Will Dearnley.
Each marries, has children, dies. His descendants, bearing his name, are
scattered hither and thither over the broad land, like leaves before the
cold keen blast of an October wind. Corruptions of the name of course
ensue. The descendants of John are “Dearnally”; of William “Dennerley.”
Centuries after this, in the year of grace 1877, one of John’s
generation, who has found his way to a big city, sees a new house, takes
it, is a grocer, and inscribes his name Dearnally above. In the meantime
another stranger is eyeing a contiguous shop in the same block of
buildings. “Fine opening for a butcher here,” says he to himself: “I
will take these premises.” He does so. Up goes his name. What is it?
Dennerley! Thus, after long years, nay, centuries, two descendants of
the two playfellows, probably brothers, are to be seen dwelling together,
each ignorant that when he wishes his neighbour good morning, he is
rejoining links in a chain snapped, oh, so long ago! The invisible
destinies of God have recovered the lost associations of twenty
generations! Said I not, the London Directory is a romance?
I have selected this story for a purpose. It explains the origin of
every local surname in existence. A man, in a new community to which he
had joined himself, might go by the name of his occupation, as “Tinker,”
or father’s Christian name, as “Peterson,” or by a nickname from his
social habits, as “Good-fellow”; but in five cases out of ten he bore the
title of the spot whence he issued forth. Take a few instances of the
mode and manner in which these local surnames were formed. All my
illustrations shall be from the London Directory. For perspicuity’s sake
I will separate them into classes.
(_a_) _Local names terminating in_ “_er_” _and_ “_man_.” “Churchman”
would seem to bespeak the original possessor an Episcopalian. But there
was no dissent in the twelfth or thirteenth century. It could give no
individuality as such. It was a local name, implying that John or Peter
Churchman dwelt by the church. Hence also “Churcher.” In the north,
“Church” was pronounced “Kirk.” Therefore, in the north these two names
are found as “Kirkman” and “Kirker,”—exactly as we find “Thacker” in
Yorkshire to be “Thatcher” in Surrey. Of this same class are Crosser and
Crossman, reminding us that there was a time in pre-Reformation days when
every village had its cross, which was as much a landmark as it was an
object of reverence. Bridger and Bridgman lived beside the wooden or
stone structure that spanned the stream.
(_b_) _Some local names still preserve the affix or suffix_
corresponding to the French “del,” “de,” “du,” and “de la,” as Atwood,
Atwater, and Atwell, once William _at the_ wood, or _at the_ water, or
_at the_ well. _By_ is found in Bywater, and Bythesea. Sometimes the
letter “n” got in for euphony’s sake, as in “Nash,” which is sprung from
“atten-ash.” “Thomas atte-n-ash” thus became Thomas Nash. Hence Nolt
for atte-n-holt (_i.e._ wood), or Nalder for “Alder.” Townsend is from
Town’s-end. Thus Peter at the Town’s-end becomes Peter Townsend, or
Townshend. “Tash” is from “at the Ash”; and Thynne, a name belonging to
one of our ennobled families, is said to be from one “John at the Inne.”
(_c_) _Most of these generic names have dropped all suffixes and
affixes_. Here a hundred surnames present themselves to our eye. Who
does not know a Hill or Dale, a Field or Croft? Who has not a friend
called Craig or Cliff, or Dean or Hope? Who has not met with a Grange or
Moor, or Wood or Shaw? Our “Streets” are as thick as Our “Lanes,” and in
the busiest thoroughfares of London you may descry Barnes and Marshes and
Parks and Forests and Warrens without end. The village spring has given
us our “Wells,” the village road our “Crosses,” and the village common
has given us our “Greens.” The following was addressed to a Miss Green
on her fortieth birthday:—
“That evergreen thy graces show;
Some men say ‘Yes,’ and some say ‘No.’
Alas! that one and all agree
That ever-Green thy name shall be!”
Greener is common, being formed after the fashion of Knowler and
Knowlman, and Streeter and Streetman, (_vide_ under “_a_”). A Mr.
Greener being devoted admirer of a Miss Green, wrote as follows:—
“One dearest wish I fondly cherish,
My ever-Green so fair, yet lonely:
To make thee mine, and thus thou’lt flourish
Greener, and Greener only.”
To which she responded,—
“I’m Green indeed; but Greener thou,
To think by love declarative,
To make me change charms _positive_
For those at best _comparative_.”
Flood and Fell belong to this same class, except when Flood is Welsh, and
then, like Floyd, it is the same as Lloyd. A Mr. Isaac Fell is said to
have had painted over his shop, in very legible characters, “I. Fell,
from Ludgate Hill”; beneath which, one day, a Shakspearian wag wrote, “O
what a fall was there, my countrymen!” We have mentioned “Dean” above.
In composition it generally appears as “den,” and implies a sheltered and
sunken glade closely surrounded with trees. Hence it was a covert for
cattle and wild beasts, and many of the names we now see bear out the
fact. Not merely do we talk of a “den of lions,” but we descry dens of
“hogs,” “rams,” “oxen,” “kine,” and even “wolves,” in such surnames as
Ogden, Ramsden, Oxenden, Cowden, and Wolvenden. Other compounds of “den”
are not so easily discernible. What Heberden may mean I do not know.
There is still in the Directory one Heberden, a physician. Probably it
was his father, or grandfather, one of three great London doctors in
George the Third’s reign, of whom the _sixain_ got abroad:—
“You should send, if aught should ail ye,
For Willis, Heberden, or Baillie:
All exceeding skilful men,
Baillie, Willis, Heberden:
Uncertain which most sure to kill is,
Baillie, Heberden, or Willis.”
But Moore or “More,” or “Moor,” represented until late in London by
George Moore, whose like we do not expect to see soon again, has been a
butt for the shafts of wit for generations. We could fill the remaining
pages of this chapter with “torts and retorts” upon this sobriquet.
Lorenzo, in the _Merchant of Venice_, says, “It is much that the Moor
should be more than reason; but if she be less than an honest woman, she
is indeed more than I took her for;” to which Launcelot replies irately,
“How every fool can play upon the word!” But some of these epigrams are
not fools’ work, nevertheless. When Sir Thomas More was Chancellor, his
untiring devotion to his office brought a conclusion to all the Chancery
cases in litigation. The following got abroad:—
“When More some years had Chancellor been,
No more suits did remain;
The same shall never more be seen,
Till More be there again.”
When Dr. Manners-Sutton succeeded Archbishop Moore, this rhyme appeared:—
“What say you? the Archbishop’s dead?
A loss indeed! Oh, on his head
May Heaven its blessings pour;
But if with such a heart and mind,
In Manners we his equal find,
Why should we wish for Moore?”
I might mention other similar attempts at rhymical puns on this name; but
let this epitaph from St. Bennet’s Churchyard, Paul’s Wharf, London,
suffice:—
“Here lies one More, and no more than he;
One More, and no more! how can that be?
Why, one More, and no more may well lie here alone,
But here lies one More, and that’s more than one!”
To this generic class belongs every name that suggests the familiar
objects of the country. Even the trees supply their quota. Who is not
aware of Mr. Harper Twelvetrees’ existence, and cannot see that his
ancestor having made his abode beside some remarkable group of birch or
oak or chestnut trees, has been styled by his neighbours “Peter atte
Twelve-trees”? Hence the French “Quatrefages,” and more English
“Crabtree,” “Plumtree,” or “Plumptree,” “Rountree” (once written
“Rowantree”), “Appletree,” and “Peartree.” All these names still exist,
and I find entries to prove they lived at least six hundred years ago.
To many of my readers it may seem somewhat strange that a single shrub
should be pressed into the service of nomenclature in this manner. But
let him imagine himself _without a surname_, living in the country, in a
lane, with no landmark adjacent but a stile, or an oak, or an ash. _How
could he escape_ being called by his neighbours John Styles, or Oakes, or
Ash? If there were no trees, nor even a stile, how could he avoid being
designated as John in the Lane, and finally John Lane? Snooks might be
set by “Twelvetrees,” for it is but a corruption of “Sennoks” and that of
“Sevenoaks,” a well-known place in Kent.
(_d_) The next division of local names is _specific_—viz. the names of
towns or villages, such as Preston, Buxton, Oldham, Lancaster, Chester,
York, and indeed all that class so multitudinous of which the old distich
already quoted says,—
“In _ford_, in _ham_, in _ley_, in _ton_,
The most of English surnames run.”
Sometimes the “ley” gets corrupted. There can be little doubt, for
instance, that Hathaway is but a mispronunciation of Hatherley, and that
Ann Hathaway’s progenitor hailed from Gloucestershire. Was ever a more
beautiful as well as clever punning rhyme made than that imputed to
Shakespear? One verse must suffice:
“Would ye be taught, ye feathered throng,
With Love’s sweet notes to grace your song,
To pierce the heart with thrilling lay?
Listen to mine Ann Hathaway!
She hath a way to sing so clear,
Phœbus might wondering stop to hear:
To melt the sad, make blithe the gay,
And Nature charm, Ann hath a way:
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway,
To breathe delight, Ann hath a way.”
Five Hathaways and three Hathways still commemorate her in the Directory.
The termination “field” is corrupted into the form of “full” in several
cases; thus Charles Hatfull’s name reads somewhat queerly. Of course he
belongs to the Hatfields who figure just above him.
See the tendency to migrate _into_, and not _from_ London. The name
London is rare, as the Directory shows. A man leaving Buxton for the
capital, would be Walter-o’-Buxton; quitting the capital for the Peak of
Derbyshire, he would be Walter-o’-London. But the tendency being for a
young aspirant after fame and wealth to go _thither_, and not _thence_,
made the surname London of rare occurrence. Perhaps there has been more
than one Whittington who has fancied the bells have bid him stay and try
his luck again in that big centre of life and industry, whose title is
the most familiar place-name in the world. Curious that the mightiest
city of the mightiest empire should be so scantily represented in its own
Directory. The cause, as I have shown, is simple of explanation. We may
here set “New,” “Newman,” and “Strange.” A new comer would easily get
the sobriquet of “Matthew the New-man,” or “William the Strange,” or
“Henry the New,” in the fresh community to which he had joined himself.
The sobriquet has stuck to his children, and still remains.
(_e_) _Names of foreign towns_, the result of earlier or later
immigration, come next: such as “Cullen” from Cologne, a name very
familiar to English Roman Catholics; “Lyons” from the city devoted to the
silk trade; “Bullen” or “Boleyn” from Boulogne; or “Janeway” or
“Jannaway” from Genoa.
Many of these foreign town-names came into England through the fact that
the towns they represented were celebrated for some particular
production. The “Challens” of our Directory all hail from Chalons, once
so famous for its blankets that they were called “chalons” for several
centuries. The name still lingers in the woollen trade of Yorkshire as
“shaloon cloth.” Chaucer speaks both of “chalons” and “cloth of raines.”
This was made at Rennes in Brittany, and has furnished the London
Directory with its various Rains, Rain, Raine, and Raines. A writer in
the “Book of Days” says the following was written upon a lady bearing the
name of Rain:—
“Whilst shiv’ring beaux at weather rail,
Of frost, and snow, and wind, and hail,
And heat, and cold, complain,
My steadier mind is always bent
On one sole object of content,—
I ever wish for Rain!
“Hymen, thy votary’s praise attend,
His anxious hope and suit befriend,
Let him not ask in vain:
His thirsty soul, his parched estate,
His glowing breast commiserate—
In pity give him Rain!”
(_f_) _Names of counties_ naturally follow the last class: as
Derbyshire, or Kent, or Lancashire, or Cumberland, or Kentish, or
Devonish, or Cornish, or Cornwall. A new comer would easily get a
sobriquet of this sort after stepping across the border line of two
contiguous shires.
(_g_) _Names of countries and nationalities_ may fitly be set last: as
Ireland, Scott, Welsh, Walsh, Wallace, English. These, of course, are
marks of migration. If an Englishman went into Scotland he would be
Peter the English, or Inglis; or _vice versâ_, he would be Peter the
Scot. Foreign districts are represented by such names as “Britton” from
Brittany, “Burgon,” or “Burgoyne,” from Burgundy, “Gaskin” from Gascony,
and so on with French, Holland, Fleming, and Aleman or Alman, the old
name for Germany. The French form for this latter is “D’Almaine,” or
“Lallimand.” Both have found their way to London; thus showing a double
immigration, first from Germany to France, and then from France to
England. Our Sarasins and, Sarsons (when not metronymics for Sara-son,
_i.e._ Sarah’s son) are interesting relics of crusading times, when the
Templar loved to bring back with him a young Saracen boy to act as his
page. The name is enrolled as “Sarracen” in many ancient registers.
Turk also exists. A “William le Turk” lived in London just four hundred
years ago, and four “Turks” may be seen in the Directory to-day. The
Rev. Richard Thorpe, incumbent of Christ Church, Camberwell, married
Thomas Turk to Jane Russ on October 26th, 1877, during the negotiations
for peace at Constantinople. How one wishes that such a hopeful union
might be brought about between the nations represented by the names of
this pair! It is fair to add, that in this case “Russ” is merely a
corruption of “Rous,” or of “Rouse,” red-haired or ruddy-complexioned—a
favourite nickname with our forefathers. Our “Rowses” and “Russells” are
of similar origin.
One name in the London Directory deserves a paragraph to itself, and also
to be classified alone, if one single sobriquet can be said to comprise a
class. This remarkable surname is “World.” What a cosmopolitan the
ancestor of the bearer of this title must have been! Mr. Bowditch, an
American writer on surnames, has recorded an instance in the Western
continent, for he says, “Columbus discovered a world, and so have I. Mr.
World lives at Orilla.” The sobriquet of course is a corruption, but of
what I cannot say.
We might go on like Tennyson’s brook, “for ever,” in this chat over local
names,—but enough. We have only left ourselves space to remind the
reader what vagrants we all are. Like Dickens’ little street boy (in
“Bleak House,” I think it is), there seems ever to be a shadowy policeman
at our elbow bidding us to “move on.” The Bible has foretold that this
is to be our condition; and our names, at least those of local origin,
have impressed on our very foreheads the truth of such a Divine prophecy.
’Tis well it should be so. Earth is not to be our dwelling-place for
ever. And though at times we may feel that we should like repose, it is
in mercy that God applies the goad, for thus are we reminded that—
“Our rest is in Heaven, our rest is not here.”
The day will assuredly dawn for the Christian when he shall be enabled to
take off his travel-worn shoes, when he shall enter into the home to
which he has been making his way through so many weary stages, and from
which there shall be no going forth, even for ever and for ever. May
every reader of this chapter be amongst that multitude of “vagabonds in
the earth,” to use a Scripture phrase, who shall then “enter His gates
with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise.”
CHAPTER IV.
ROBIN HOOD AND THE LONDON DIRECTORY.
THE largest class of surnames in the London Directory, we showed in our
second chapter, after local names, were those of patronymic origin:
baptismal surnames we called them. If Richard has a son called Richard,
it is easy to suppose that this child would go by the name of Richard
Richard’s son, or Richard Dick’s son. A third generation having appeared
in the form of a grandson, called Richard, after father or grandfather,
it will be readily supposed that, he being also Richard Richard’s son, or
Dick’s son, the surname Richardson would now be sufficiently familiarised
to become the _hereditary_ cognomen of the descendants of this stock.
Thus Richardson and Dickson have sprung into being. Thus every name of
this class has originated. Names like Johnson, Jackson, Timpson, Wilson,
Harrison, or Stephenson, simply prove that the bearers of these several
titles are descended from some particular John, Tim, Will, Harry, or
Stephen, who when he died bequeathed his baptismal name as a piece of
property to his immediate descendants—not deliberately, as he would his
money and estates, but in the casual and accidental fashion recorded
above.
We can understand that at first it would seem strange for a _girl_ to go
by a patronymic of this kind. Imagine at this early stage of surname
formation some village maid bearing the name of Mary William_son_
(_i.e._, Mary, the son of William)! To us, accustomed to these names,
there seems nothing absurd in such a title as Matilda John_son_, or
Margaret David_son_. It never occurs to us to take the name to pieces,
and see the incongruity of its several elements. That this was a
difficulty to our forefathers is evident from the fact that there are
many entries like “Joan Willsdaughter,” or “Nan Tomsdaughter,” in the
registers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Thus “Isabella
Peersdoghter” lived near Durham four hundred years ago—_i.e._, Isabella,
the daughter of Peers, _i.e._ Peter. In the same way, “Avice
Mattwife”—_i.e._, Avice, the wife of Matt (Matthew)—or “Cecilia
Wilkin-wife,” is found at the same period. The reason why surnames
ending in _daughter_ are not found now, is that if the girl with such a
surname died unmarried, it died with her; if she married, she changed her
name. “_Son_,” as a termination having no difficulties of this kind to
contend with, has left us a multitude of names. Had it been otherwise,
we should have had surnames like Steven-daughter, Dick-daughter, and
Hopkin-daughter, contending for a place in our directories with
“Stevenson,” “Dickson,” and “Hopkinson.”
It would seem as if the female sex, therefore, had been hardly treated in
this matter of baptismal nomenclature. Indeed, some of my readers might
be tempted to ask me whether the gentler half of the community are
represented at all in our directories. I am happy to respond in the
affirmative. John and Margery might have a son, Robert by name. Now,
John is a timid, retiring kind of man; his wife being a bustling, active,
assertive woman. John sits in the chimney-corner, Margery does all the
marketing, all the talking, possibly all the working also. In a word,
she rules the roost. Naturally, the neighbours get into a way of calling
the child “Robert _Margeri_son,” rather than “Robert _John_son.”
Margerison, Margetson, and Margetts are all in the London Directory.
Take another instance: Hodge and Nell get married; Hodge dies, and a
posthumous child is born. Only the mother is living. As a matter of
course, the little one is styled Antony or Sarah _Nel_son, according to
its sex. A large number of metronymic surnames must be attributed to an
accident of this kind. All our “Ibbs,” “Ibbisons,” “Ibbsons,” “Ibbots,”
and “Ibbotsons” are sprung from Isabella, a much more common and familiar
name four or five hundred years ago than it is now. Our “Emmetts,”
“Emmotts,” “Emmotsons,” “Emms,” and “Empsons” are descendants of some
“Emma,” or “Emmot,” as she was then styled. Many people have refused to
believe that there are any metronymic surnames, for fear that it would
seem to imply illegitimate birth. It is always silly to deny facts, and
I have shown there is no reason to dread the charge in the great majority
of these instances.
Every nation has its own peculiar way of forming the baptismal surname.
We have no less than five representing British as distinct from English
nomenclature: Anglo-Norman, Anglo-Saxon, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh. Each
had his fashion of framing the patronymic, and all, I need not say,
abound in the metropolis. The Norman made _fitz_ (French, _fils_) a
prefix, and thus Gilbert, son of Hamon, became Gilbert Fitz-hamon. The
Saxon made _son_ a desinence, and thus Ralph, son of Nichol, became Ralph
Nichol_son_. The Welshman put _ap_ (_i.e._ son) in the forefront, like
the Norman, and thus Owen ap-Richard became Owen Pritchard, or Griffin
ap-Harry Griffin Parry, or Hugh ap-Rice Hugh Price. The inhabitant of
“Caledonia stern and wild” also set _Mac_ at the beginning rather than
the end, so that Andrew, son of Aulay, became Andrew Macaulay. Lastly,
our friends of the Emerald Isle prefixed _Mac_ or _O_ to the baptismal
name, as their form of descent, and thus Patrick, son of Neale, became
Patrick MacNeale, or Patrick O’Neale. As the old rhyme has it:
“By _Mac_ and _O_,
You all may know
True Irishmen, they say;
But if they lack
Both _O_ and _Mac_,
No Irishmen are they.”
Thus within the boundary lines of our own Britannic realm we have
“_son_,” “_fitz_,” “_ap_,” “_Mac_,” and “_O_” employed in the formation
of one single class of surnames. Sometimes the Welsh “_ap_” became
“_ab_,” and thus ap-Evan has become “Bevan,” ap-Owen, Bowen, ap-Ethell,
Bethell, and ap-Huggins, Buggins. In the same way, ap-Lloyd is found in
the London Directory as Bloyd.
There are about five thousand people in London bearing names of which
“Robert” is the root and foundation. I wonder if it has ever struck my
reader that the _nominal_ existence of four-fifths of this large
population is the result of the life, adventures, and celebrity of that
great outlaw Robin Hood. To gather up the links of evidence would fill a
volume. I will occupy the remainder of this chapter by a brief _resumé_
of the argument. If I prove my assertion, this will be demonstrating the
reality of my title, and show conclusively that the London Directory may
be well styled a “romance.”
That Robin Hood was the fictitious name of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon,
has been proved an idle fable; but although there are serious doubts as
to the existence of William Tell, there need be none as to the
individuality of Robin Hood. That a noted forester—an outlaw—of this
name roved in the neighbourhood of Sherwood during the first four decades
of the thirteenth century, is beyond dispute.
“In Locksley town, in merry Nottinghamshire,
In merry sweet Locksley town,
There bold Robin Hood was born and was bred,
Bold Robin of famous renown.”
He and his companions lived by spoil. His popularity was twofold in
origin. He was credited with a spirit of liberty chafing against an
oppressive and tyrannic rule. He was equally credited, truly or the
reverse, with unbounded kindness to the poor. Camden styles him
“_prædonem mitissimum_,” the gentlest of thieves. Sir Walter Scott says
of the spoil he heaped up, that he “shook the superflux to the poor,”
and, in respect of government, “showed the heavens more just.” Dying
about the year 1247, it was not very long before he became an
“institution”: every country ballad, every chapbook had its story of
Robin Hood, his princely spirit, his skill in archery, his wondrous
adventures, and his hair-breadth escapes. The impression that he was of
noble birth only added to his popularity.
This of course could not but have its effect upon the nomenclature of the
time. It is well known that when Thomas à Beckett was murdered, almost
every child born immediately afterwards was, if a boy, christened Thomas.
To this tragedy myriads of Thompsons and Tomlinsons owe their surnames.
The dictionary and the directory are under equal obligations to Robin
Hood. There need be little doubt that Gough’s suggestion that his real
name was “Robin o’ the Wood” (_i.e._ Sherwood) is true. The corruption
“Hood” is perfectly natural.
(1.) Look at some of our _place-names_. In 1730 there was a “Robin
Hood’s Well,” about three miles north of Doncaster; and Leland, the great
itinerary, visited “Robyn Hudd’s Bay,” under which antique dress we
recognise the familiar village and coast “Robin Hood’s Bay,” betwixt
Whitby and Scarborough. Everybody has seen a Robin Hood’s oak, or a
Robin Hood’s bower. At this moment there are hundreds of country inns in
the north, called “Robin Hood,” with a picture of the bold archer in
dress proper, or intended to be so, to the period in which he is supposed
to have lived. His bow and arrow are of course always depicted, and
occasionally a deer in the distance.
(2.) Look at the old English _proverbs_; and we may premise that if a
man has created a proverb he has made himself immortal. “Good even,
Robin Hood,” quoted by Skelton, poet-laureate to Henry VIII., implied
“civility extorted by fear.” Fuller quotes, “Many men talk of Robin Hood
that neere shott in his bow.” “To over-shoot Robin Hood,” is another
proverbial saying. This is quoted by Sir Philip Sidney. “Tales of Robin
Hood are good for fools,” is quoted by Camden. The most familiar,
however, was “to sell Robin Hood’s pennyworths.” Fuller refers to this
as of things half sold, half given; the great robber parting lightly with
what he came by lightly. “Robin’s choice,” this or nothing, would seem
almost to have suggested “Hobson’s choice,” for Hobson is a patronymic of
Robert, Hob being the old familiar pet name for the same.
(3.) To Robin Hood, again, we doubtless owe the familiarity of several
names applied to the _spirit world_. Our forefathers were very
superstitious, especially the country peasantry. A belief in “brownies,”
“dobbies,” “pixies,” and elves kindly or mischievous, still largely
prevails in places removed from the busy towns. Superstitions of this
kind die where men are herded together. It is only in dusky woodlands
ghostly sights appear, or in the silences of the rural churchyard or
forest avenue that voices are heard whose utterance is not from human
throat! Certainly Robin Hood must stand sponsor for much of the dread
that nurses infused into naughty children’s breasts. The pet names or
nurses’ names of Robert were “Robin,” “Hob,” and “Dob.” The _ignis
fatuus_, to this day an object of apprehension, was associated early with
the bold freebooter:—
“Some call him _Robin Goodfellow_,
_Hob-goblin_, or mad Crisp.
And some againe doe terme him oft,
By name of Will the Wispe.”
So says an old ballad. _Robin_ Goodfellow and _Hob_-goblin, it will be
seen, represent the same name. Another title for the same was
“Hob-lanthorn” (_i.e._ Robin’s lanthorn). Dr. Halliwell gives the term
“Hob-thrush,” adding that it is always used in association with Robin
Goodfellow. In the “Two Lancashire Lovers” (1640) it is said, “If he be
no hob-thrush, nor no Robin Goodfellow, I could finde with all my heart
to sip up a sillybub with him.” Here, then, are four names, “Robin
Goodfellow,” “Hob-goblin,” “Hob-lanthorn,” “Hob-thrush;” all used to give
personation to that curious light which occasionally may be seen in
marshy and woody districts. How natural that these should be associated
with that mysterious denizen of the forest, whose name was in everybody’s
mouth, and who came and went, who showed himself here, there, and
everywhere, and yet could never be caught!
“From elves, _hobs_, and fairies,
Defend us, good Heaven,”
say Beaumont and Fletcher in one of their plays. And every reader of
Shakespear will remember how in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” the Fairy
addresses Puck as—
“That shrewd and knavish sprite
Called Robin Goodfellow:”
while by-and-by she adds:—
“Those that Hob-goblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their worst, and they shall have good luck.”
In the extreme north of England the pet name for Robert was Dob, or
“Dobbin.” Curiously enough, to this day the term for Hob-goblin is there
“Dobby.” {63} I ask the reader, if this can be an accident? Could it
have been possible that five distinct names should be given to the _ignis
fatuus_, or to such woodland elves as were supposed to reveal themselves
under his frolicsome light, all having Robert as their chief component,
had not the thousand and one stories about Robin Hood and his merry men
and their nightly escapades been spread over the land by the
ballad-mongers of the time that immediately followed his death?
(4.) Once more: look at our _general nomenclature_ of men, birds,
beasts, and shrubs. So common had “Hob” become in the northern and
midland districts (for every man you might meet ’twixt York and Leicester
was sure to be “Hob”), that it became a cant term for a country yokel.
Thomas Fuller in his “Lives” speaks of “country-hobs” where we should
speak of “country-men.” Thus, too, Coriolanus is made to say—
“Why in this wool-less toge should I stand here,
To beg of Hob and Dick?”
The _jack-ass_ is just as often called “_dobbin_” in the north, and an
ewe-lamb a _hob_-lamb. The tame ruddock has become the “_robin_
redbreast”; a chicken, a _roblet_ (robelot, _i.e._, little robin);
bindweed goes by the title of “Robin-run in the hedge”; the common club
moss is “Robin Hood’s hatband”; while every child is familiar with
“ragged robin,” and “herb-robert.”
Surely this is enough to testify to the popularity of Robert! The fact
is, that Robin Hood gave a start to his name similar in its effects to
that of a snowball. He has grasped all he has touched. He has left his
memory upon everything. He has stamped his march upon things animate and
inanimate. So long as we have a language and a dictionary, a
nomenclature, and a directory, we shall daily be reading and looking upon
words and names which, however meaningless on the surface, are teeming
with recollections of the bold outlaw, whose thrilling adventures, whose
kindly bounties, whose supposed devotion to liberty, made him the idol of
his own time, and an object of interest to his countrymen so long as
England shall endure.
And now we may ask, what has Robin Hood done for English nomenclature, so
far as surnames are concerned? Well, in the first place, he made
“Robert” the favourite name at the font for a century at least. We even
find Robin Hood itself appearing as a surname. A tradesman bearing the
sobriquet of Thomas Robyn-Hod, lived at Winchelsea in 1388. At the very
time that Robert was thus popular, baptismal surnames were being
established. As a consequence, Robert was no sooner a Christian name
than it became a candidate for the place of a surname. Remembering the
different pet names in familiar use, it will not be so astonishing that I
should be able to collect no fewer than forty-six separately-spelled
surnames, all descended from this one single appellation! while London
alone could gather into Hyde Park as many as five thousand souls whose
individuality is recognised by their associates through the medium of
this famous title.
(_a_) _Robert_ has given us Robert, Roberts, Robart, Robarts, Robertson,
Roberson, and Roberton.
(_b_) _Robin_ has bequeathed Robin, Robins, Robbins, Roblin, Robinson,
and Robison.
(_c_) _Rob_ has left us Robb, Robbs, Robbie, Robson Robkins, Ropkins,
and Ropes.
(_d_) _Dob_ has handed down to us Dobb, Dobbs, Dobbie, Dobson, Dobbins,
Dobbing, Dobinson, and Dobison.
(_e_) _Hob_ has transmitted Hobb, Hobbs, Hobbes, Hobbiss, Hobson,
Hobbins, Hoblyn, Hopkins, Hopkinson, Hopps, and Hopson.
(_f_) Besides these there were once such familiar French diminutives as
Robinet, Dobinet, Robelôt, and Robertôt. These did not come directly
from France or Normandy. They were forms adopted by the country people
from the habit, common then as now, of copying the fashions of the more
noble families. Elizabeth Robinett will be found in the London
Directory. Hers is the only instance that I can find still existing.
The rest were all surnames in the fourteenth century. {66}
(_g_) The Welsh, seizing upon the name, turned ap-Robert and ap-Robyn
into Probert and Probyn, respectively.
Can I add anything to prove the popularity of Robin Hood? It is possible
that we could not have spoken of Hobbism, or of a Hobbist, for the
founder of that system of philosophy might have borne some other name.
It is possible that there might have been no “Hobson’s choice,” for that
worthy liveryman at Cambridge might, under some other sobriquet, have
compelled the young collegian to take the next horse on the list, or
none. Certainly our old friend _Punch_ would have been unable to poke
fun at Cockneydom under at least one name of the famous company of
“Brown, Jones, Smith, and _Robinson_.” It is possible, too, that “before
you could say Jack Robinson” would never have become an English
commonplace. How the phrase originated I cannot say, but it is a very
old one, if the couplet quoted from an old play by Dr. Halliwell be
genuine:—
“A warke it ys as easie to be doone,
As tys to saye ‘Jacke Robyson.’”
CHAPTER V.
EARLY PET NAMES.
THE present and following chapter I purpose devoting to the further
consideration of the subject of baptismal names. There are distinct
epochs in the history of names, as in the history of everything else.
One great crisis in our national nomenclature was the Norman Conquest.
With the exception of Alfred, Arthur, Edwin, Edward, Ethel, and say a
dozen other agnomens which were preserved through various accidents, all
English names of the pre-Norman period disappeared before the end of the
twelfth century. They were literally submerged beneath the advancing
tide of Norman titles and usages. All the great popular sobriquets so
familiar to us to-day, such as William, Henry, Ralph, Richard, Gerald,
Robert, and even Scripture and Saint’s-day names like John, Ellis
(Elias), Stephen, and Matthew, belong to the later epoch.
But an equally grave crisis in English nomenclature was the publication
of an English Bible, and the Reformation of Religion that followed. From
that day all our common and familiar Bible names came into use. Till
then the only Scripture names in vogue were those set down in the
Calendar of the Saints, or such names as were employed in the
“Mysteries,” or “Plays” taken from Scripture stories, performed at
festivals for the amusement and instruction of the peasantry and
tradespeople. From the day of the Reformation the _out-of-the-way_
sobriquets of the Bible came into favour. As these increased, what we
may call the pagan names decreased. The popularity of Harry, Dick,
Robert, and Walter began to fade. Some, like Hamond, Avice, Drew, Payn,
and Warin, altogether disappeared, while Guy, Baldwin, and Edward held
but a most precarious existence.
Here then are two epochs—the Norman, and the Puritan. Let us confine
ourselves in this chapter to the first.
“_Pagan_” and “_Christian_” were both favourite baptismal names in the
Norman epoch. The former was registered as “Payn” or “Paine.” Chaucer
says,—
“The constable and Dame Hermigold, his wife,
Were payens, and that country everywhere.”
All our “Pagans,” “Payns,” “Paines,” and “Pinsons” are from this
old-fashioned sobriquet. A century ago, the Hon. Thomas Erskine having
been seized with a serious illness, and kindly tended at Lady Payne’s
house in London, wrote,—
“’Tis true I am ill; but I need not complain,
For he never knew pleasure who never knew Payne.”
_Christian_ has never been popular in England, but Christopher has; and
besides the long “Christophers” and “Christopherson,” has left us Kitts
and Kitson.
Another name, a Scripture name too, is now all but wholly disused—that of
Samson. I daresay many of my readers have thought that our many Sampsons
are all but entirely descended from Sam-son, _i.e._, the son of Samuel.
I have no hesitation in claiming a full half for the son of Manoah, the
Danite. The old registers teem with entries like “Samson de Battisford”
or “Sampson Dernebrough.” Shallow says (2 _Hen. IV._), “And the very
same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer behind
Gray’s Inn.”
“I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand,
To mow ’em down before me,”
says the porter’s assistant in _Henry VIII_. The fact is, the story of
Samson was a favourite one with our forefathers, and often performed at
the miracle-plays. There are nearly fifty Sampsons and Samsons in the
London Directory, some of them being of purely Jewish descent. “Elegant
Extracts,” a favourite storehouse of good, bad, and indifferent (very)
poetry for the youth of our country in the last century, has the
following, anent this name:—
“Jack, eating rotten cheese, did say,
‘Like Samson, I my thousands slay.’
‘I vow,’ quoth Roger, ‘so you do,
And with the self-same weapon too.’”
Speaking of Roger, we may note that he is fast going out of fashion.
There was a day when “Hodge” was as familiar as Hob, Dicon, or Harry. A
single glance at our Directory will prove this, for to him we owe all our
Hodges, Hodgsons, Hodgkins, Hodgkinsons, Hodsons, Hotchkiss’s, etc. Just
as Hob, from Robert, became Dob in North England, so Hodge, from Roger,
became Dodge. From Dodge we get our Dodgshons, and Dodgesons. Just as,
also, Hodgson became Hodson, so Dodgson has become Dodson. The Welsh
turned Ap-Roger into Prodger. All this proves a popularity for Roger
utterly beyond its present modest pretensions.
A great deal of nonsense has been written upon one of the noblest family
names in England—Howard. It is constantly said, and as constantly
reiterated, that the sobriquet is one of occupation, being nothing more
nor less than Hog-ward, or hog-herd, corresponding to Swinnart from
swine-herd, Coward from cow-herd, Shepherd from sheep-herd, Calvert from
calve-herd, and Stoddart and Stottard from stot-herd (_i.e._, stot,
bullock). All these latter are without doubt what they seem to be, for
old registers give them in their more manifest dress. But Howard is only
another form of Harvard, or Hereward, or Heoruvard. Thus we find such an
early entry as John Fitz-howard (that is, John, the son of Howard),
clearly a baptismal surname. When Byron wished to hurl an invective at
the head of his relative, the Earl of Carlisle, he quoted Pope,—
“What can ennoble knaves, or _fools_, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.”
The italics are Byron’s, and every one knows the family name of the Lords
of Carlisle. As a quotation, it was apt; as applicable to the Earl, it
was the opposite; but Byron in a rage meant Byron ungovernable either by
courtesy or truth. However, my point is, that the ancestral house of the
Howards are not descended from a hog-herd,—though it would be no disgrace
if they were, for a shepherd once became a king and a poet,—but from one
of those grand personal names which existed in England before the Norman
Conquest was dreamt of. “Hereward, the Saxon” has been made familiar
within the last few years by Charles Kingsley. This is but the same name
in an earlier dress. It might have been considered a happy thought, if
the author had dedicated his book to one of the Howards, and stereotyped
their identity.
In my work on “English Surnames” I have given a somewhat exhaustive list
of the various appellations formed from English baptismal names. So I
will merely hint at a few and pass on. Walter, as Wat, gave us Watkins,
Watts, Watson, and Watkinson. The old familiar form for Walter was
Water, which explains Shakespear’s play upon the name in _Henry VI._:—
“My name is Walter Whitmore.
How now! why start’st thou? What, doth death affright?
_Suffolk_. Thy name affrights me, in whose sound is death.
A cunning man did calculate my birth,
And told me that by _water_ I should die.”
Our Waters and Watersons are thus explained. _Antony_ has bequeathed us
Tonkin, Tonson, and Tounson; _Philip_, Phipps, Phillips, and Philpotts
(_i.e._ Philipot, that is, little Philip, a pet name). A curious form of
Philpot may be seen in the Directory in the shape of Fillpot. This
reminds us that many a play has been made on the name. It was not so
very long ago that Punch facetiously remarked upon the fact that the
newly elected Bishop of Worcester was Philpott, the then Bishop of Exeter
being the celebrated Philpotts,—
“‘A good appointment? No, it’s not,’
Said old beer-drinking Peter Watts;
‘At Worcester one but hears “Philpott,”
At generous Exeter “Philpotts.”’”
A large number of patronymics are to be seen in the surnames that come
under the division “N” in the Directory. In the old song “Joan to the
Maypole” it is said,—
“Nan, Noll, Kate, Moll,
Brave lasses, have lads to attend ’em:
Hodge, Nick, Tom, Dick,
Brave country dancers, who can amend ’em?”
“Nan” stands for Anna or Hannah, Noll for Olive or Oliver, in this case
Olive, a girl’s name. In fact, every name that began with a vowel was
turned into a pet form beginning with “N.” Edward became Ned, and Emma
Nem. Thus in St. Peter’s, Cornhill, the register says,—
“Sept. 20, 1577. Fryday, buryed, Nem Carye, daughter of Harry
Carye.”
Humphrey became Nump, and Abel, Nāb. In Ben Jonson’s “Alchemist,” the
tobacco man Abel addresses Face,—
“Yes, sir; I have another thing I would impart,”
to which Face replies,—
“Out with it, Nāb.”
Again, Isabella became Nib. The result of this is, that such surnames as
Nibbs, Nabbs, and Nemms or Neams, are common. Even Nance, which figures
twice in the Postal Directory, is just as likely to be the old “Nans,”
from Anna, as from the town of Nantes. The owner can take his choice,
however, and probably will prefer the local origin.
Talking of girls’ names, we may notice how many surnames owe their origin
to Matilda, Emma, Isabella, and Petronilla. There are pages of
Tillotsons, Tillots, Tilletts, Tilts, and Tills, all from the old pet
form Till. Emma, too, is commemorated in little companies of Emms, Emps,
Emsons, Empsons, Emmotts, Emmetts, and Emmotsons; while Isabella is not
far behind with the retinue of Ibbs, Nibbs, Ibbotts, Ibbetts, and
Ibbotsons. Petronilla, the feminine form of Peter, was always known as
Parnel, and is thus found in St. Peter’s, Cornhill:—
“1586, Aprill 17. Sonday, christening of Parnell, daughter of
William Averell, merchaunt tailor.”
Hence our many Parnells and Parnalls. Mary has left us Mollison and
Marriott (_i.e._ little Mary), but was never popular in England during
the days of surname formation. Maria was practically unknown till the
seventeenth century. As Charles Lamb says,—
“_Maria_ asks a statelier pace,—
‘Ave, Maria, full of grace!’
Romish rites before me rise,
Image worship, sacrifice,
And well-meant but mistaken pieties.”
It is a proof that even in days long anterior to the Reformation the
English peasantry had an inrooted objection to a foreign religious yoke,
in the shape of Popery, that such names as Peter and Mary should be so
scantily represented. ’Tis true that Peter has left his mark upon the
Directory. There are shoals of Peters, Petersons, Perkins, Pearces,
Piers, Pierces, and Pearsons, but their origin belongs to an earlier day.
Certain it is, that at least a century before the reign of Mary, the name
was growing into disrepute with the English people, and no doubt the
obnoxious tax of Peter’s-pence was at the root of it.
_Guy_ was turned in Norman nurseries into Guiot (_i.e._, little Guy);
this in English was transformed into Wyatt. How popular this name was
four hundred years ago, is proved by the fact that there are nearly sixty
Wyatts set down in the London Directory alone. William, Walter, Warin,
and Wyatt all testify to the change of French G into English W. In the
French Directories they will still be found as Guillaume, Gualter,
Guarin, and Guiot. And as Guillaume became William, so Guillemot (little
William) became Williamot, and then Wilmot. The French, however, unlike
the English, were very fond of adding _two_ diminutives to the name.
Thus, Guillot (little Will) became Guillotin (little wee Will). This
reminds us of Dr. Guillotin, who invented that terrible instrument which
played such a horrible part in the French Revolution. In the same way,
Hugh (always spelt “Hew” in mediæval records) became English Hewet
(little Hugh), and French Hugot. But our neighbours, inserting another
diminutive, turned it into Hugenot (little wee Hugh). This at once
explains a matter of much contention. There has been much strife as to
the origin of the word Huguenot. Had our friends only been aware of the
fondness of the French some centuries ago for _double diminutives_, they
would have seen at once that the sect sprang from some _individual_
bearing that name, the origin of which is perfectly simple. It may be of
interest to add, that we in England have never used _double diminutives_.
In France it was the rule rather than the exception, as their Directories
fully prove. Introduced by the Normans, we have both “in” and “ot” or
“et,” as in “Col_in_” and “Hew_et_,” from Nicholas and Hugh; but we never
conjoin them to one name. A Frenchman four hundred years ago would have
turned them into “Col-in-et,” “Col-ot-in,” “Hugu-in-ot,” or “Hug-ot-in.”
’Tis true, we in England called children “Rob-in-et,” as I have shown in
a previous chapter; but it was a mere passing fancy. I was wrong,
however, in stating that the surname “Robinet” is practically obsolete,
for Mr. Hutton, the Rector of Stilton, writes to inform me that in a
village adjacent there are several families of this name.
Thomas owed its great popularity to Thomas à Becket, who for a time at
least was a popular idol. Few baptismal names have laid their impress on
the London Directory as this has done. Rows of Thomas’s appear, many
hailing from the Welsh border. These are flanked by columns of Thompsons
with a “p,” and Thomsons without a “p.” Dancing attendance on these more
important members of the Thomas family, are scattered up and down a few
Thomassets, and Thomsetts, memorials of the old pet name “Thomaset”
(_i.e._ little Thomas). But Thomas seemed to imagine that the “h” in his
side ought to be got rid of, so he appears in shoals as Tompkins, with a
“p” again, and again as Tomkins without a “p.” Poor relations do not
like to make their connection too prominent, for fear of giving offence,
so in the background, but close enough to be ready to make good their
claim, appear several Toms, Thoms, Tomes, and Tombs. This last looks
very funereal indeed, and would seem to be a local name taken from one
who has had his dwelling amid the tombs, but “b” was often put at the end
in that way. Thus Timbs is from Tims, that is, Timothy. A string of
Tomlins and Tomlinsons completes the list. Many will remember the rhyme
about Thomas the footman, whom his lady married:—
“Dear lady, think it no reproach,
It showed a generous mind,
To take poor Thomas in the coach,
Who rode _before behind_.
“Dear lady, think it no reproach,
It show’d you loved the more,
To take poor Thomas in the coach,
Who rode _behind before_.’”
There are a fair number of Guns, Gunns, and Gunsons, in our Directory.
There is a slang phrase about being the “son of a gun.” This was a
common occurrence in old days when such entries as “Richard filius Gunne”
were frequently made. The fact is, “Gun” was a baptismal name, and the
surnames mentioned above are but sprung from it. It is not many years
since Mr. Gunson preached the assize sermon at Cambridge before Mr. Baron
Alderson and Mr. Justice Patteson. The following rhyme got abroad:—
“A Baron, a Justice, a Preacher,—sons three:
The Preacher, the son of a Gun is he;
The Baron, he is the son of a tree;
Whose son is the Justice I can’t well see,
But read him _Pater_son, and all will agree
That the son of his father the Justice must be.”
Alderson is but a form of Aldrichson, Aldrich being once a common
baptismal name; while Patterson, Paterson, Pattison, and Patteson, are
all commemorative of Patrick, who, strange to say, was scarcely
remembered at the font at all in Ireland at a time when he was very
popular in England.
Every country has a sobriquet which stands as a kind of baptismal name
for the nation, as distinct from the individual. England is represented
by John, or John Bull; Scotland by Alexander, as Sawney or Sandy; Ireland
by Patrick, as Pat; and Wales by David, in the dress of Taffy. Let us
trace their origin very briefly, and see their effect upon our
nomenclature. In 1385 the Guild of St. George, at Norwich, contained 376
names; of these 128 were John! This extraordinary proportion was the
direct result of the Crusades. From the Jordan, in which Christ had been
baptized, every crusader brought home in his bottle water for baptismal
purposes. He could not christen his child by the name of Jesus, the
Baptized—this would be blasphemy; but he could give it the name of the
baptizer, John. Remember, too, that John the Baptist was “Elias.” Hence
Baptist, John, Ellis, and Jordan, became the favourite baptismal names
for several generations. Our Jordans, Jordansons, Jordsons, Judds,
Judsons, and Judkins are all memorials of this, for Judd did not become
the pet name of George till the seventeenth century. In early days it
was the nickname of Jordan. The other day I saw a register of a child
christened “River,” his surname being Jordan. Thus both names have the
same origin. This kind of thing is common. I know registers where may
be seen three “River Jordans.” “Windsor Castle” occurs in a Derbyshire
church record. But John took the lead.
One of the most curious freaks in the history of nomenclature is that
which made Jack the nickname for “John.” The French for James was Jaques
(Jacobus). This being the then favourite name in France, got popularized
in England, with this difference, that the common folk took it and made
it the pet name of their own favourite name “John.” Thus our Jacks,
Jacksons, Jacklins, are all reminiscences of John rather than James. It
is so still. No one ever dreams of styling a boy called James, Jack. To
this day, John and Jack are synonymous. The Flemings brought in “Hans”
(_i.e. Johannes_). These have originated our Hankins, Hankinsons,
Hancocks, Handcocks, Hanks, and Hands. Further distinction was obtained
by nicknaming some boys as “Little-John,” “Proper-John” (_i.e._,
handsome: in country parts, they still say of a young man, “He’s a proper
young fellow”). The French introduced Gros-Jean (Big-John) and Bon-Jean
(Good-John), and the latter got corrupted into Bunyan. To John we owe
our Johnsons, Jones, Jennings, Jenkinsons, Jenkins, and Jenks. No doubt,
when Mr. Jenkins wrote “Ginx’s Baby,” he was aware that both author and
hero bore the same name, for “Ginx” is simply “Jinks” or “Jenks”
caricatured.
Miss Yonge thinks that Margaret Atheling introduced Alexander into
Scotland from the Hungarian Court. Her third son was Alexander, and
under him and the other two Alexanders Scotia was prosperous. Hence its
great popularity. Sawney and Sandy are the pet forms, and the surnames
Alister, McAlister in the Highlands, and Sanders or Saunders in the
Lowlands, will for ever prevent the name being forgotten.
Patrick, the patron saint of Irishmen, whose festival is kept wherever
Irishmen may be, has, strange to say, left scarcely a single surname.
There is “Kil-patrick,” and “Gos-patrick”—_i.e._, servant of Patrick (Gos
= gossoon, _i.e._ garçon), but no real patronymic. How is this? One
single reason will suffice. At the time of surname formation “Patrick”
was scarcely ever used at the font. “Teague” was the popular name till
the end of the seventeenth century. Under 150 years ago, Englishmen
spoke of an Irishman, not as “Pat,” but as “Teague.” I could prove this
equally from registers and ballads.
“Taffy,” of course, was and is the Welsh national name, and owes his
origin to St. David, who lived in the sixth century, and through his
sanctity caused his bishop’s see to be changed from Menevia into St.
David’s. Davy, Davis, and Davies are therefore common enough in the
Principality. From our childhood we have heard that—
“Taffy was a Welshman,
Taffy was a thief;”
but we trust, for the credit of our friends across the Severn, that this
refers to a particular Taffy, and not to the national Taffy. Black sheep
are to be found in every flock. That Taffy can be a hero, Happy Dodd and
his compatriots can prove; and never was the Albert Medal more richly
deserved or more bravely won, than on the morning that witnessed the
rescue of the imprisoned miners in the Welsh coal-pit. All honour to
Taffy!
CHAPTER VI.
THE BIBLE AND NOMENCLATURE.
I SAID in my last chapter that I should devote the present one to a
relation of the causes that led to a complete revolution in our English
baptismal nomenclature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
During this comparatively brief period, most of the popular mediæval
names lapsed, not merely from favour, but into total oblivion. ’Tis
true, this does not properly appertain to the subject of surnames,
because, having now become an established system, it was impossible for
the Reformation to affect them to any appreciable extent. That is, the
Reformation could revolutionize our baptismal names, but not our
surnames. Had the Reformation occurred three or even two centuries
earlier, the London Directory of 1877 would have presented a totally
different appearance to that which it does. Instead of half a thousand
Harrisons and Harrises, we should have had, may be, a hundred
“Calebsons,” and “Abnersons,” and “Joshuasons,” and “Jaelsons.” Why?
Because surnames were undergoing their hereditary formation then.
Nevertheless, our subject is quite apropos to the Directory, for
Christian names abound there as well as surnames. If the pages of that
great tome do not show that our surnames were visibly affected by an open
Bible, a Reformation of Religion, and a Puritan Commonwealth, it is not
so with the baptismal names. Every page bears strong evidence of a
wondrous and stirring revolution.
Let us first clear the ground. In what relation did the Bible stand to
English nomenclature in pre-Reformation days? The Scripture names in use
during that period were fourfold in origin.
(_a_) _Names so prominent in Scripture_ that none could be ignorant of
them, such as Adam and Eve. All our Atkins, Atkinsons, Adams, Adamsons,
Adkins, Adkinsons, and Addisons come from Adam; all our Eves, Evisons,
Evetts, Evitts, Evotts, and Evesons, from Eve. An old will, dated 1391,
speaks of the same individual as Eve and Evot (_i.e._ little Eve). Adam
and Eve, four hundred years ago, were two of our commonest personal
names.
(_b_) _Names of Bible heroes_, whose story was wont to be dramatized on
religious festivals, and thus made familiar to the peasantry. The
offering of Isaac, and Daniel in the den of lions, were two favourite
plays. Thus, Isaac as Higg or Hick, and Daniel as Dan, were popular
everywhere. Thus we got as surnames, Higgins (_i.e._ little Isaac),
Higginson, Hicks, Hickson, Higgott and Higgs, from the one, and Daniels,
Danson, Dankins, Dannett (_i.e._ little Daniel), and Dann from the other.
Higgonet,—a double diminutive (treated of in our last chapter),—became
Hignett; and even non-smokers must have seen the virtues of Hignett’s
“mixture” glowingly described in the daily advertisements! Imagine
Higgins or Hignett as derived from Isaac! Nevertheless, such is the
undoubted fact.
(_c_) _Ecclesiastic names_, or names taken from the calendar of the
saints, such as Bartholomew, Nicholas, or Peter. The reader would be
indeed amazed if I were to furnish him with a list of all the surnames
founded upon these three once familiar names. Bate, Bartle, and Bartelot
were the pet forms of Bartholomew, whence our Bates, Battys, Batsons,
Bartles, and Bartletts. St. Nicholas gave us Nicholls and Nicholson,
Nix, Nicks, Nixon, and Nickson. Cole (whence our Coles) was the most
favoured pet form, however, of Nicholas; and this, with the popular
Norman-French diminutives “_in_” and “_et_” appended, made Colin and
Colet. Hence our many Collins, Collinsons, Colsons, Colletts and Colets,
not to mention the double diminutive Colinet. As for Peter, I have
already reminded the reader of the pages of names that the London
Directory contains, all originated by that agnomen upon which Rome has
founded her most pretentious and arrogant claims. When we reflect that
previous to the incoming of the Normans there were no Scripture names in
use in England, saving in the case of a few ecclesiastics, who had
adopted them at ordination, we can in some little degree realize the
great revolution our national nomenclature had undergone in respect of
the three classes I have here summarised.
(_d_) _Festival names_, such as Christmas or Pascal. The other day I
was passing through a street in Kensington, and saw “Pentecost” over a
door. It is a curious surname, and yet not uncommon. The reader perhaps
wonders how such a term got into our Directory. Its origin is perfectly
simple. Like John, or Thomas, it was but a baptismal name, and having
become so used, it inevitably came to the honours of a surname. How?
says a reader. This way,—John, the son of Pentecost, five hundred years
ago, becomes John Pentecost, and the thing is done. Pentecost is no
exceptional instance. The London Directory contains many a Christmas, or
Midwinter, or Paschal, or Pask, or Nowell, or Noel. All these mediæval
terms for religious seasons were used as baptismal names, (being given to
children born on these festivals,) and then became surnames. The Hon.
and Rev. Baptist Noel got his surname in such a manner. Noel was quite a
familiar term in England and France for Christmas Day; and a child born
on that eventful morn would naturally receive as his font-name that which
gave title to the day, especially when we consider that Noel is nothing
more than “Natalis,” the “natal day.” As time passed on, and the meaning
of Noel became obscure, the Christmas waits pronounced it “Now well! Now
well;” as they sang their midnight carol. It was a pretty and
significant mistake. Surely, as Noel comes round, many a believer can
catch the strain of angelic “glad tidings” of a Saviour born, and say,
“Now well, indeed, for me and all mankind.” “Nowell” is the commonest
form of the surname. In France, all children born on Easter Day were
christened “Pascal.” This, becoming a surname, was handed down to Blaise
Pascal, one of the most brilliant and most pious men that that great
country has ever produced. In the north of England Easter was always
known as “Pace,” or “Pask.” These of course are common surnames. “To go
a pace-egging” is still a familiar phrase in Lancashire and Yorkshire;
and the prettily ornamented eggs are still sold in the shops as Easter
comes round. By a happy conceit, they are often called “Peace-eggs”; and
certainly “Pace” has proved “Peace” to myriads of souls. The
Registrar-General, in one of his reports, came across a Christmas
Day—_i.e._, the child’s surname being “Day,” the parents had it
christened “Christmas.” “Pentecost,” for a child born on Whit-Sunday,
was once extremely popular. {86}
But these quaint customs have come to an end. To baptize an infant by
the name of “Pentecost” or “Paschal” would now be considered a piece of
eccentricity, not to say irreverence. The Reformed Church of England has
sufficiently emphasized these festivals in her Services, without laying
too great stress upon them. The superstitions and follies that gave
over-prominence to such seasons in mediæval days ceased with an open
English Bible and a purer and simpler Christianity. The danger now is a
rush to the other end of the tether. I believe there are thousands of
living Nonconformists who regret that they have allowed such services as
would have commemorated the events of Easter Day, Good Friday, and
Ascension Day to fall into desuetude. The neglect of Ascension Day, even
among Churchmen, is, I think, much to be deplored.
But if the Reformation threw one class of names into the cold shadow of
neglect and oblivion, it took care to fill up the gap with an assortment
of its own selection. We may set down the interval between 1580 and 1720
as the most curious era in the history of personal names, whether of this
or any other country. The more I have studied our English baptismal
registers of the seventeenth century,—and I may say, without boasting,
few have studied them more frequently than I,—the more profoundly am I
convinced that no other revolution of a religious or social character in
the annals of nations can present claims to eccentricity equal to that
which, beginning with the Reformation, found its climax in the Puritan
Commonwealth. Alas! I can only touch upon the subject here, but I could
easily fill a book with instances gleaned by myself in a not very long
life. Friends interested in the same pursuit, I must add, have also
helped me; not to mention _Notes and Queries_, that storehouse of
treasures to antiquaries of every bent.
The first signs of serious change betrayed themselves at the beginning of
Elizabeth’s reign. The English Bible rested in English hands. But it
was a new book. Names familiar enough in 1877, but probably heard of for
the first time in 1577, were drawn forth from their concealment, and made
to subserve the new impulse of the nation. It was then that the minister
at the font had to begin registering such names as “Abacucke Harman,”
“Sydrach Sympson,” “Phenenna Salmon,” “Gamaliel Capell,” “Archelaus
Gifford,” “Melchizedek Payne,” “Dyna Bocher,” or “Zebulon Clerke.” It
was as if the Bible were a new country full of verdant tracks, and as
they passed through each plucked the flower that pleased him most. By
the time King James came to the throne, “Phineas,” “Philemon,” “Uriah,”
“Aquila,” “Priscilla,” and “Hilkiah” had become the rage. Before he
died, Harry had fallen into neglect, Ralph and Guy were utterly despised,
and names like Hamlet, or Hamnet (Shakespear’s son was Hamnet), or Avice,
or Douce, or Warin, or Drew, or Fulke, had gone down like sodden logs in
a stagnant pool. Whether they will ever come into use again is very
doubtful. Only national caprice can do it; but that, we know, can do
anything. That Avice, so pretty and simple as it is, should have
disappeared, I cannot but think a national loss.
By the time of Charles the First, the national taste had gone a degree
further. It becomes positively amusing to study the registers of this
period. It had evidently become a point of respectability among certain
classes of the community to select for their children the rarest names of
Scripture. John, Nicholas, Bartholomew, Thomas, and Peter, though
Scriptural, were tabooed; a stain rested on them, as having been in the
Calendar during centuries of popish superstition. In fact, the Apostles
were turned out for having kept bad company. Many seemed to have rested
their claim to thorough knowledge of the Bible upon the rarity of the
name they had discovered in its pages. Thus I find “Ebedmeleck
Gastrell,” whose Christian name only occurs once in the Scriptures (Jer.
xxxviii. 8). “Epaphroditus Houghton,” “Othniell Haggat,” “Apphia Scott,”
“Tryphena Gode,” “Bezaliel Peachie,” are cases in point. If a child were
styled by a new, quaint, unheard-of title, as a matter of course it was
assumed to be from the Bible. From the appearance of such a name as
“Michellaliell,” I fancy tricks of this kind were common.
A further stage of eccentricity was reached when it became fashionable to
emphasize the doctrine of original sin by affixing to the new-born child
a Scripture name of ill-repute. The reader can have no conception how
far this was carried. In the street Dinahs and Absaloms walked
hand-in-hand to school; Ananiases and Sapphiras grovelled in the dirty
courts and alleys; and Cains took Abels to pluck flowers in the rural
lanes and meadows, without thoughts of fratricide. Archbishop Leighton,
son of a much persecuted Presbyterian minister, had a sister Sapphira.
The acme of eccentricity was reached in the case of _Milcom_ Groat, whose
Christian (!) name was “The abomination of the children of Ammon.” It
may be seen in the State Papers (Domestic). I am furnishing all these
names hap-hazard from my notebooks. In the dame’s school the twelve
patriarchs could all have answered to their names through their little
red-cheeked representatives who lined the wall, unless, maybe, Simeon or
Reuben stood on a separate seat with the dunce’s cap on! But the
strangest freak of all is still to be recorded. We have all heard of
Praise-God Barebones. Hume, in his History of England, asserts that his
brother bore the long name of
“If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-condemned Barebones.”
What the historian adds to this I will not repeat, for fear of seeming
irreverent. Many have supposed this to have been a case of mere
exceptional eccentricity. Nothing of the kind. It was not an uncommon
custom for a man or woman after conversion to reject with horror the
pagan name of “Harry” or “Dick,” which their god-parents had imposed upon
them, and be known henceforth as “Replenish,” or “Increase,” or
“Abstinence,” or “Live-well.” Of course, if they married after this,
they spared their children the necessity of any such alteration by
furnishing them with personal appellations of this character at the
outset.
The earliest specimens of this peculiar spirit will be found in the reign
of Elizabeth—that is, within a score of years or so of the Reformation
and the gift of an open English Bible; so we must not suppose it was
wholly an institution of what we may term the Cromwellian period. It
reached its climax then, nothing more. In the Elizabethan “Proceedings
in Chancery” may be seen such names as Virtue Hunt, Temperance
Dowlande,—Temperance was one of our most popular names for a hundred and
fifty years,—Charitie Bowes, and Lamentation Chapman. Lamentation would
easily be affixed to a child whose mother had died in childbirth.
Ichabod has often been given for a like reason. On the contrary,
“Comfort” would be readily seized upon under circumstances of Christian
or parental joy. The other day I was in Tewkesbury Abbey, now undergoing
restoration, and, as is my wont, I began ferreting for peculiar names.
In a churchyard I instinctively walk like a dog with my nose to the
ground. Almost immediately, I came across two “Comforts,”—“Comfort, wife
of Abram Farren, died Aug. 24th, 1720,” and “Comfort Pearce, died Nov.
17th, 1715;” the latter was granddaughter of the former. Miss Holt,
whose “Mistress Margery” and other sound and thoroughly well-written
stories will have been read by most of my readers, told me not long ago
that she had seen in the register of St. James’s, Piccadilly, the
following entries:—“Repentance Tompson,” “Loving Bell,” “Obedience
Clark,” and “Unity Thornton”; “Nazareth Rudde,” also, was contained in
the same record. This reminds me of “Jerrico Segrave” in a Derbyshire
record. In that county it was very possible for Bible place-names to be
thus incorporated into personal nomenclature. Among the ruder peasantry
it was a common custom,—a custom dating from the Reformation,—to have
their child baptized by the first name the eye lighted on after the
parent had let the family Bible fall open upon the table. A clergyman
not long ago, asking in the Baptismal Service “What name?” received the
whispered rejoinder, “Ramoth Gilead.” Naturally enough, he inquired,
_sotto voce_, “A boy or a girl?” A curious instance of this general
class is to be found in the case of Frewen, Archbishop of York, who died
in 1664. He was son of a Puritan minister in Sussex; his Christian name
was “Accepted,” and his younger brother was “Thankfull.” It is from this
epoch that we must date the origin of some of our prettiest, if not now
most popular, names for girls: “Grace,” “Faith,” “Hope,” “Charity,”
“Truth,” and “Prudence.” All these have survived the era in which they,
and a hundred longer and less simple terms, were introduced; and if they
are now getting out of favour, it is only one more proof that the
fashions in detail, as well as the fashions generally, of this world,
undergo silent, it may be, but inevitable change.
We must not suppose, however, that there was no spirit of antagonism to
this remarkable practice, so new in origin, and yet so deeply
established. I have carefully avoided any reference to the disagreements
that led to the execution of Charles the First, and the Commonwealth. If
this era was socially vicious, it was also religiously hypocritical.
Both sides had good and bad men in their midst. A poem written in 1660,
styled a “Psalm of Mercy,” is an evident “skit” by some Royalist upon the
new taste in nomenclature. It is too long for quotation, and though not
actually ribald, is better left in its obscurity. It pokes fun at the
following names:—Rachel, Abigaile, Faith, Charity, Pru (Prudence), Ruth,
Temperance, Grace, Bathsheba, Clemence, Jude, Pris (Priscilla), Aquila,
Mercy, Thank, Dorcas, Chloe, Phœbe. It is curious to note, that while
none of these names could be found in an English register prior to 1560,
in 1660, when this satirical ballad was indited, there was not one which
was not more or less popular, not one of which I myself have not found
several instances in contemporary records. We have only to add, that
after the recital of all these names, the poet concludes with a couplet
which we cannot insert here, but which indicates very clearly that the
writer was not very much drawn to this new phase of feeling. However, if
we are to thank the Roundheads for the introduction of many really pretty
names,—names, too, awakening sweet Biblical and religious associations in
our hearts,—we must not forget that it was owing to the antagonistic
spirit of the Cavaliers that we are still in possession of not a few old
names, which, though pagan in origin, are rendered dear by their
antiquity and their relations to English life and character generations
ere the Reformation was dreamt of. Above all, we must never forget, that
whether the name be in the Bible or out of it, whether it be given at the
font or even in the registrar’s office, it is the man that sanctifies the
name, not the name the man. It was not their names that made Venn, and
Simeon, and Wilberforce venerated; but Venn, and Simeon, and Wilberforce,
by their earnest devotion and stable piety, made themselves so revered by
Christian Englishmen that their names are still uttered with that hushed
and bated breath that is the deepest demonstration of regard that human
heart can express. Let us not then regret, that if by one band of men
the treasury house of the Scriptures was ransacked for a new vocabulary
of nomenclature, to another band we owe the preservation from the death
they were threatened with, of Ralph, Walter, Dick, Harry, Cecilia, Lucy,
Beatrice, Julia, Robert, Humphry, and Edward. Again do you say, “But
they are pagan!” Prythee, friend, will you say that because Latimer bore
the pagan name of Hugh, he died “without hope,” as a dog dieth; or that
she who permitted his body to be burned, because she bore the name of
Mary, could assert with her nominal prototype that “All generations shall
call me blessed”? Her name is written in blood; and “Bloody Mary” she
will be styled from English lips, till the Reformation be branded as a
mistake, and its heroes as fools.
I have laid stress,—nay, I have dwelt lingeringly,—on these now quaint
and old-mannered names for a particular reason. How many of my readers
there must be who, without realizing the causes, are conscious of the
fact that the Christian names of our cousins across the Atlantic, and
those of ourselves, are marked by a certain divergence. When the Pilgrim
Fathers set forth from Plymouth and Bristol, they bore with them their
Puritan cognomens; and there, in Virginia and all the east border of the
great States, they are established nearly as firmly to-day as they were
in England two hundred years ago. Take up an American story, and in the
names of its heroines you can tell, not only their nationality, but the
writer’s also. “Faith,” and “Hope,” and “Patience,” and “Grace” are
still their favourite titles. Nor is this a mere accident. If we turn
to Mr. Hottens’ list of emigrants between 1600 and 1700, we find such
names to have been of everyday occurrence. In the same family we find
such trios as “Love Brewster,” “Fear Brewster,” and “Patience Brewster”
quitting our shores. We find a brother and sister registered as
“Hopestill Foster” and “Patience Foster;” while such entries as
“Perseverance Green,” “Desire Minter,” “Revolt Vincent,” “Joye Spark,”
“Remember Allerton,” and “Remembrance Tibbott” greet one at every turn.
In such titles as these—“Hope-still,” “Remember,” “Remembrance,”
“Desire,” “Patience,” and “Perseverance”—our minds are inevitably thrown
back to those days of religious persecution, while we seem to be bidding
these travellers God-speed on their distant and uncertain journey from
the pierhead as the good ship lifts her anchor; and we can detect in the
heart of the emigrant that mingled tide of hope and fear, trust and
regret, confidence in the future united with a fond and lingering looking
back, which still abides unbanished,—in spite of occasional tall
talk,—from the American’s heart. He is proud of his land, but he does
not forget the old country. No man so proud of making a name for himself
as he; and yet no man so proud of tracing his pedigree back to a name
that has been already made for him generations ago on England’s soil! In
the twofold title of “Hopestill” and “Remembrance” still lives all that
speaks of reverence in America’s past and expectation for America’s
future.
If it were necessary, we could easily show how the same thing has
happened to the vocabularies of the two countries that has befallen the
two nomenclatures. We smile when a Yankee says, “I guess,” “I
calculate,” and “I reckon;” but when we read in the Epistle of St. Paul
the sentence “_I reckon_ that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us,” do
we always reflect, as we might do, that our translators and revisers of
1611 were simply putting into the mouth of the apostle a phrase which was
then colloquial English, but now survives, in all its familiarity, only
in the United States, whither the Puritan Fathers had carried it? This
comparison we might easily extend, but it is not our subject.
As for American baptismal nomenclature in general, it is all but entirely
Biblical. The only book the refugee took with him was his English Bible.
His piety was fed from its pages, his life was likened to its histories,
his surroundings had the same cast of primeval simplicity; he discovered
a resemblance between his own new life and that of the patriarchs, and it
pleased him to stereotype the resemblance by the adoption of their names.
From out that Book alone he named his offspring, and thus to this
day,—such is the power of tradition,—“Brother Jonathan” and “Uncle Sam”
are but representatives of a class of names which well-nigh engrosses
every other. A single instance will suffice to show how this great mass
of Biblical nomenclature arose. Charles Chauncy died in New England,
1671. He emigrated from Hertfordshire, where the family had been settled
for centuries. His children were Isaac, Ichabod, Sarah, Barnabas,
Elnathan, Nathaniel, and Israel. All these grew up and settled in New
England.
It has been well said, that were it not for our English Bible the two
languages of the United States and England would slowly but surely
separate themselves into two distinct dialects, possibly tongues.
Certainly it is to that book which Wycliffe,—whom we commemorated in
1877,—wrote into English, we owe the fact that in no respect is there a
closer bond and deeper sympathy betwixt England and America than in that
which concerns the nomenclature of the two countries. In what respect
they differ I have shown. While _we_ have dropped some names that marked
eccentricity, and restored some of the older and more pagan cognomens
from the oblivion that seemed so certainly to await them, _they_ have
clung tenaciously to that more quaint and large class of names of
Scriptural origin, which their forefathers of Puritan stock bore with
them across the ocean in days when America was as yet a portion of the
British dominions.
May the twofold offspring of one stock hold fast still, as in days of
yore, to that One Name in the Bible which is above every name! Then
shall the two great branches of the Anglo-Norman race continue to
multiply and be strong, and all the continents of the world shall be
blessed through their means.
CHAPTER VII.
OFFICERSHIP.
I SET out with the intention of writing six chapters on the “London
Directory;” and, lo! I have reached the mystic seven. The worst of it
is, that at the present rate of progress I shall have to transgress the
editorial licence by at least four more before I can possibly bring my
remarks to a close, consistent with the demands of my subject.
Nevertheless, the Editor has only to say the word, and I will wipe,—not
my tearful eye, but my goose quill, and bid my courteous reader adieu!
The other day I met a friend, and he greeted me with the remark, “Awfully
dry.” Thinking he referred to the weather—it was the end of June—and
feeling decidedly warm, I assented cordially, when I discovered that the
statement was intended to be a less polite than concise criticism upon
one or two of my later instalments to _The Fireside_, on the subject that
heads these pages. My friend made several other remarks founded on the
first, and went so far as to offer me some advice—a very dangerous thing,
as everybody knows. It was to this effect: “Stick to your text.” What
is my text? I asked, thinking to take him off his guard. “The London
Directory,” he replied promptly.
Well, I must admit that in the last two papers I slightly wandered from
my text. My excuse is this: baptismal names are in the London Directory
as well as surnames; and the baptismal names of to-day are as different
from the baptismal names of five hundred years ago as were the baptismal
names of five hundred years ago from those in vogue five hundred years
before that. This curious fact I wished to bring out and develop. At
the same time I wanted to show that it was the English Bible that had
caused the change. Whether I succeeded in so doing, I must leave to the
reader to decide. At any rate, I can now turn, with such cheerfulness as
my stern critic has left me, to the next class of English Surnames
represented in the London Directory—that originated by Office, whether
ecclesiastical or civil. I have got the Directory itself at my left
elbow, not merely as a monitor to warn me, but also as a reference to
support me. Looking to this mighty tome, then, for inspiration as well
as illustration, I at once begin.
The Directory teems with relics of the feudal system. There is not a
single office belonging to that formal and ceremonious age which is not
commemorated within its pages. Whether it were service within the
baronial hall or tenure without, all was held by a retinue who thought no
office too mean or servile for acceptance. The feudatory, in fact, could
seemingly do nothing; everything was done for him. He could eat and
drink, ’tis true, and he did both to the great admiration of all
beholders; but he had an officer to carve his meat for him; another to
change his plate; a third to crack jokes for him, to aid his digestion; a
fourth to extend a bowl to wash his fingers; a fifth to hand him a napkin
to wipe them; a sixth to hold his wine-cup for him; and a seventh to
taste each fresh dish set before him, so that in case poison had been put
in the food, his taster might drop down dead instead of himself. Why the
baron hadn’t an officer to wipe his nose for him, I can’t say; it has
always been a mystery to me. One thing, however, is certain. As he sat
and ate and drank, he had a little crowd of officers who thought it only
too high a distinction to perform duties so menial, that a scullion in
the present day, if asked to undertake some of them, would probably
reply, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?” At any
rate, he would give you a month’s notice, to a certainty.
That all these officerships existed, the Directory still shows; for I
have no hesitation in saying that the finest and most trustworthy records
of the feudal age are to be found, not in the British Museum in Great
Russell Street, nor the Bodleian Library at Oxford, but in that great
red-backed tome which lies on the shelf in every London warehouse.
Imagine our going to these dry and prosaic emporiums of merchandise for
an account of a long past state of life, which, with all its barbarism,
is well-nigh the most poetical era of English history. I mentioned seven
officers who tended the baron at his meals. Taking the Directory, I find
twelve Carvers, two Sewers, eleven Napiers and Nappers, six Ewers, one
hundred and twenty-five Pages, not to mention our various “Cuppages”
(_i.e._ Cup-page), Smallpages, and Littlepages, six “Says,” and
twenty-four “Sayers.” ’Tis true there are no “Fools” in the Directory,
though there may be plenty out of it; but once it was a very common name
indeed, and denoted the _officer_, if I may use the term, whose duty it
was to convulse the table with laughter by making the most ludicrous
jokes he could invent, backing them up with all sorts of grimaces and
contortions. He was a professed punster, too, and had free licence to
make them at the expense even of his lord. Indeed, the fool could make a
joke with impunity, which would have cost any other man his head. Of
course he wore a fool’s-cap as the insignia of his office. The Napier,
or Napper, set the napkins, once called “napes.” A curious and silly
story has got abroad, that the Scotch Napiers got their surname from one
Donald, whose prowess was so great in a certain battle, that the king
said he had “na peer,” that is, no equal. His friends,—so the tale
goes,—from henceforth styled him Donald Na-pier. The Scotch Napiers are,
as Mr. Lower shows, of the house of Lennox, and owed their cognomen to
the office I have described, held by their ancestors in the royal
household. The Ewer carried the ewer of water in front of the Napier;
and as they had no forks in those days, and used their left hand in a
manner which would be now considered the reverse of polite, no wonder
that between every course the _napier_ and _ewer_ would be busy indeed.
Even the carver had no fork, and had to use his fingers very freely with
the joints. In the “Boke of Kervynge,” an old manual of etiquette for
young squires, there is a strict order to this effect:—“Sett never on
fyshe, flesche, beest, nor fowle, more than two fyngers and a thumbe”!
The young squire had early to learn this accomplishment; and therefore
Chaucer, describing his Squire, made a point of saying in his favour,—
“Courteous he was, lowly and servisable,
And carf before his fader at the table.”
The Sewer brought in the viands; we still use the root in such compounds
as _en-sue_ and _pur-sue_. A _sewe_ was any cooked dish or course of
meat. Hence Chaucer, describing the rich feasts of Cambuscan, says, time
would fail him to tell—
“Of their strange sewes.”
The Queen’s household still boasts, I believe, its six Gentlemen Sewers.
The “Page,” of course, was a familiar spectacle, for he was here, there,
and everywhere, at the beck and call of his lord. No wonder, therefore,
he has so many representatives in our Directory. It is said that an
elderly bachelor, bearing this name, became deeply attached to a young
lady. Being bashful by nature, and unacquainted with the arts of
courtship, he hung about the damsel for a long time, seeking vainly for
courage and opportunity to declare the state of his mind. The golden
chance came at last. At a party one night the fair lady dropped her
glove. He rushed to pick it up, and presenting it to her, said,—
“If from that glove you take the letter ‘G,’
Then glove is love, and that I give to thee.”
She at once responded,—
“If you from Page should take the letter ‘P,’
Then Page is age,—and that won’t do for me.”
I believe he was taken ill and went home.
Knight, like Squire and Bachelor,—all relics of feudal days,—is largely
represented in London. A would-be reader of the poets, it is said, went
into a shop and asked to see a copy of “Young Knight’s Thoughts.” He was
somewhat astonished to find that “Young” was not an adjective, but a
surname. This reminds one of Southey’s story of the lady who, seeing a
book advertised bearing the title “An Essay on Burns,” ordered a copy,
thinking it treated of scalds, and might contain some remedies. Say,
Sayer, Guster, and Taster—the last alone being now obsolete—all refer to
the office mentioned above; the duty of the first bearers of these
several names being to hazard their own lives for the preservation of
their masters’. In a word, they stood behind their lord’s chair, and as
every dish of meat or cup of wine was brought in, they _assayed_ it
(_i.e._, they took the first bite or sup); so that if either had been
“drugged” by some conspirator in the kitchen, the baron might escape. It
is right to add, to prevent misconception, that in some cases our Sayers
owe their origin, like “Tester,” to another officership—that of examining
money, to see whether it was full weight and of genuine metal. There are
four or five “Testers” in the London Directory.
We may close this list with the mention of such surnames as Spencer or
“Spenser”; Marshall, Chamberlain or Chamberlin, Warder, and Butler. All
these represented important officerships.
We may here take the opportunity of referring to the condition of the
lower classes. In the country there was no middle class, such as we know
by the term, excepting those who are represented in the Directory under
the sobriquet of Yeoman, Yeomans, and Yeomanson. The peasantry were
oftentimes little more than goods and chattels of their masters. We must
not exaggerate, however, for although there are sixty-four “Bonds” in the
London Directory, who represent such old entries as “William le Bonde,”
the progenitors of this name were in no such abject servitude as is now
understood by the word. That they were hard worked there can be no
doubt:
“Of alle men in londe
Most toileth the bonde,”—
and how much freedom was valued may be guessed from the number of Franks,
Franklins, Frees, Freebodys, Freemans, Freeds, and Freeborns, in the big
tome we are discussing. We find even Free-wife and Free-woman in the
older registers, but they are now obsolete—in the Directory, I mean, not
in actual life, for very often the wife not merely “rules her house,” but
her husband too, and a good thing for him if he only knew it! There are
fifty-three “Frys” to be added to this list, the old form of “free.” How
curious that the lady who so distinguished herself in toiling for the
abolition of slavery should have borne the name of Elizabeth Fry! Who
strove more earnestly to make the bond free than she? Truly Tom Hood
meant jest for earnest when he wrote his ode to Dr. Kitchener:—
“What baron, or squire, or knight of the shire
Lives half so well as a holy Fry-er?
In doing well thou must be reckoned
The first—and Mrs. Fry the second.”
Again he says in jest and rhyme, with a sly hit in the last line at her
Quaker garments:—
“I like you, Mrs. Fry! I like your name!
It speaks the very warmth you feel in pressing
In daily act round Charity’s great flame—
I like the crisp Browne way you have of dressing.”
If Hood had known the meaning of Mrs. Fry’s name, he could have made a
better play than this upon it. The forms in the old rolls are Walter le
Frie, or Roger le Frye.
The country police were represented by various terms, and as I turn the
page of my book of modern reference I am reminded of them all. The
Hayward guarded the fences; the Forester or Forster or Foster, the
Woodward, the Parker, the Warrener or Warner, the Woodreeve, now found as
Woodruff or Woodroff, all protected the covers wherein the beasts of the
chase found harbourage. The Pinder, or Pounder, was engaged in locking
up strayed cattle. Every village had its pound, and no doubt in a day
when hedges and dikes and fences were less familiar sights than now, his
office would be an important one.
It may be asked, Have we any relic in our Directories of any office in
the large towns answering to our modern policeman, or “peeler,” as our
street _gamins_ so disrespectfully style him? We answer in the
affirmative. Our somewhat common surname of Catchpoll, Catchpole,
Catchpool, and Catchpoole are his representatives. They were so called
because, as they walked their beat, they carried a somewhat formidable
weapon, very like a pitchfork, the two prongs of which slipped round the
neck, and formed a steel collar. The officer then had the criminal
entirely at his mercy, and could either drag him, or shove him by the
pole attached, which was from six to seven feet, in length. He was
called a Catchpoll, because he _caught_ his victim by the head or _poll_.
We still talk of a poll-tax, or “going to the poll,” showing how familiar
the word was in those days. The Malvern Dreamer, in his poem entitled
“The Vision of Piers Plowman,” says of the two thieves crucified with our
Saviour, that,—
“A cachepol cam forth,
And cracked both their legges.”
Another form, Catcherell, lingered on for a time in our nomenclature, but
it is now gone, unless Cattrall be but a corruption. An old sermon of
the fourteenth century speaks of the “devil and his angels” as the “devil
and his cachereles”! Our “Waites” and “Waits” represent the night
watchmen. As they both sounded the watches and gave the alarm with a
trumpet or horn, it came to pass that any band of night serenaders
acquired the name. We are all familiar with the Christmas “waits”! I
see there are two “Wakemans” in the Directory. The wakeman was the North
English form of “watchman,” just as kirk is North English for church, or
dike for ditch, or thack for thatch. Thus, Wycliffe translates Mark xii.
37, “Forsooth, that that I say to you, I say to all, Wake ye,” where our
modern translators have “Watch.” Strangely enough, in Psalm cxxvii. 1
they have employed both forms. “The watchman waketh but in vain,” should
have been either “The wakeman waketh but in vain,” or “The watchman
watcheth but in vain.” As it stands it is incongruous, for it gives the
modern reader the idea that the watchman had been asleep, implying that
he had been negligent, which, of course, is not in the original. When we
remember, as I have shown, that “wake” and “watch” were but the same word
with two pronunciations, one North English and the other South English,
the difficulty is explained. {107} A north countryman, if he wants to
say that his neighbour is a shrewd fellow, says, “Eh, but he’s a wak’
un.” I don’t know whether a Lancashireman or a Yorkshireman is the most
“wak’;” but an old saying gives the preference to the County Palatine.
If a Lancashireman wish to be ahead of a Yorkshireman, it says, he must
be up at two o’clock in the morning; but if a Yorkshireman wish to be
ahead of a Lancashireman, he mustn’t go to bed at all. We may surmise
that a Lancashireman originated the saying. Both “Wake” and “Sleep” are
in the London Directory. Brook, in his “History of the Puritans,”
relates a story concerning these two names. It seems, by a curious
coincidence, that Isaac Wake was University Orator at Oxford, in 1607,
Dr. Sleep being a well-known Cambridge preacher at the same time. James
the First, who not merely liked his joke, but was fond of listening to
sermons,—both characteristic of a Scotchman,—used to say, “he always felt
_inclined_ to Wake when he heard Sleep, and to Sleep when he heard
Wake”—_i.e._, he could not decide on the relative merits of the two.
Wake and Sleep will both be nicknames—the ancestor of the one doubtless
being a sharp shrewd fellow; the progenitor of the other, I daresay,
being thought somewhat dull and stupid by his neighbours.
Speaking about “Sleep” and “Wake” reminds us of a name which has been a
puzzle to many—that of “Gotobed.” The last time I was in the metropolis,
I saw it over a door in Great Portland Street. The name has acquired
additional interest since Mr. Trollope introduced it in one of his most
able stories, “The American Senator.” One of our humorous poets had
already played upon it in the lines,—
“Mr. Barker’s as mute as a fish in the sea,
Mr. Miles never moves on a journey,
Mr. Gotobed sits up till half after three,
Mr. Makepeace was bred an attorney.”
It is just possible it is a nickname, for it occurs in registers as
Gotobedde since the days of Elizabeth. Besides, there is a like nickname
in the Hundred Rolls in the case of “Serl Gotokirk,” a sobriquet given to
the owner on account of his regular and frequent attendance at worship.
Nevertheless, I believe it to be a baptismal surname. I doubt not it is
a mere corruption of Godbert, once a favourite child’s name. When I add
that I find it five hundred years ago entered as “Godeberd,” a little
later as “Gotebedde,” and more recently “Gotobedd,” I think the question
may be looked upon as settled.
But I am falling into a snare. Methinks I hear my stern critic saying,
“What has Gotobed to do with official surnames?—stick, Sir, to your
text.” Well, the connection does certainly seem somewhat vague; but
Wakeman was official, and it led me to Wake, and from Wake it was not
very odd that I should pitch upon Sleep, and after all you can never
sleep comfortably unless you _go to bed_. Still, to soothe my friend, I
will hark back, and conclude this chapter by a reference to a few
ecclesiastic surnames.
’Tis true that Henry the Eighth and others demolished our abbeys,
monkeries—as Latimer styles them—priories, and other Romish institutions
that had become objectionable to English morals. But one thing they
could not do—uproot them from our registers. In the London Directory, if
nomenclature goes for anything, they never flourished so vigorously as in
the reign of Protestant Victoria! Apart from Westminster Abbey, there
are at least five Abbeys in other quarters of the Metropolis, while no
less than seventy-three Abbots reside in the same neighbourhood. Nor is
this all. There are still left in London over fifty “Priors,” “Pryers,”
and “Pryors,” over twenty “Fryers,” over thirty “Monks,” and nearly forty
“Nunns.” Talk of the Papal aggression! Why, Mr. Newdegate should call
the attention of the House of Commons, and through them that of the whole
country, to the fact immediately. It is awful to contemplate what is
thus going on under our very noses. It was only the other day that a
Nunn appeared in a small house out of the Strand _not more than a day
old_, if the register of births be correct. Talk of boy-bishops, this is
simply intolerable!
It is almost as bad when we turn to names that are less Romishly
suggestive. How can it be consistent with his more orthodox duties, for
an Archdeacon to be a furniture-broker, a Dean to be a rag and bottle
merchant, or a Bishop to be a tobacco and snuff manufacturer! If my
stern critic doubts my word, I can only refer him to the London
Directory. There, sir, I’m sticking to my text this time, surely! I
know a “Priest,” too, who keeps a chandler’s shop Marylebone way, and a
“Deacon” who employs his leisure hours in the delightful occupation of
chimney-sweeping; he resides in the vicinity of Edgeware Road. Not that
I blame them; for what better can you expect from either Priests or
Deacons, so long as Bishops, Deans, and Archdeacons are guilty of such
vagaries as I have stated?
There was a time,—now a long while ago,—when two personages contended for
the honours of the Papal chair. There are no less than thirty-six Popes
in London at this present moment; one is a greengrocer, by the way. I
have not heard of their quarrelling; and so far, at least, this must be
considered satisfactory. A good deal of blood was shed over the rival
claims of the first two. When James the First came on a visit to Sir
Thomas Pope, near Oxford, the Knight’s little daughter was introduced to
his Majesty with these lines,—
“See! this little mistress here
Did never sit in Peter’s chair,
Neither a triple crown did wear,
And yet she is a Pope!
“No benefice she ever sold,
Nor did dispense with sin for gold;
She hardly is a fortnight old,
And yet she is a Pope!
“A female Pope, you’ll say, ‘a second Joan?’
No, sure, she is Pope _Innocent_, or none.”
An epigram, or a bit of wit, always pleased James the First, who was no
mean punster himself; and no doubt this little entertainment at the
entrance of the knight’s mansion helped materially to make his Majesty
enjoy the hospitalities lavished upon him within.
One name I have never yet seen in the London Directory, which occurs in
the old parliamentary writs—that of “Hugh Holy-water-clerk.” He dwelt at
Lincoln, and was doubtless connected with the cathedral body. But the
old “Paternoster” still exists hale and hearty, as anybody may see who
will take the trouble to inspect the big book of reference which gives
title to my pages. How many thousands there are who daily pass
Paternoster Row, and never reflect that it derived its name from the fact
that several tradesmen who strung beads dwelt there. They were called
“Paternosters,” and found ample occupation and profit, no doubt, in
selling their religious ware to the people as they entered the old
cathedral to patter aves. That they bore this name Mr. Riley has shown
in his “Memorials of London,” wherein not merely is “William le
Paternoster” mentioned as dwelling there, but a Robert Ornel is described
as following the trade of “paternoster.” What a history there is
conveyed in such a registered name as “Sarah Paternoster, fishmonger,
336, Hackney Road”! For centuries, as the name has passed on from one
generation to another, there has been handed down with it a memorial of a
time which can never return,—at least, I believe it can never return,—a
time when our more superstitious forefathers and foremothers thought they
could win the favour of Heaven and the grace of God by a glib and
unmeaning reiteration of a prayer carefully and solemnly framed by Christ
Himself to express and comprehend all the needs of the human heart. It
is neither the length of our prayers nor the number of our invocations
that will save us. It is the peculiarity of the Gospel narrative, that
those who received benefit at Christ’s hands were they who uttered very
short prayers; but then they knew what were asking for, and from whom
they were making request. Why, if grace depended on the _quantity_ of
prayer, then we could reduce the holiness of believers to a mere
arithmetical ratio, and by the amount of their petitions demonstrate to
so many fractions how much more saintly one Christian was than another.
But I had better stop, or my reader will think I am preaching a sermon.
Wouldn’t my stern critic come down heavily on me then? And I should not
know what to say in self-defence!
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EMPLOYMENTS OF OUR FOREFATHERS.
NOTHING would be easier than to occupy a half-dozen chapters with a
relation of the mode in which our forefathers led their lives. It is one
peculiarity of nomenclature, that it reaches into every nook and crevice
of English customs. What our ancestors specially favoured in the way of
meat and drink, is set down with the utmost particularity in the London
Directory of to-day, while, on the other hand, it is by the absence of
certain names therein that we can form a safe judgment of what delicacies
they lacked. No one would expect to see the potato commemorated in the
Directory, for the simple reason that it was introduced into England
after surnames had become established on a solid basis. There are no
“Tatermans” or “Taterers.” But such names as Appletree, Appleyard,
Plumtree, Pearman, and Peascod, exist. Why? Because apples, pears,
plums, and peas, have been familiar to Englishmen for a dozen centuries.
“Photographer” is not in the Directory for the same reason, but “Limner”
is, the old “illuminator.” “Cabman” is also conspicuous by its absence,
but “Carman” and “Wagner” (_i.e._ Wagoner) exist. Had tea, or umbrellas,
or broughams, or balloons, or carpets, or potatoes, or croquet balls, or
telegraph wires, or tinned meats, or steam engines, or churchwarden
pipes, or Indian pickles, been introduced about five hundred years ago,
every one of these would have left its mark on our personal nomenclature.
Each would have found itself commemorated in our directories as well as
our dictionaries. It is true the railway engine might seem to have been
referred to in such fourteenth-century registrations as Richard le
Engineur or William le Genour, but these men only wielded the great
battering-rams, or catapults, or engines for hurling stones. Very
destructive they were, of course, and so important a profession that no
wonder there are thirteen “Jenners” in the London Directory alone. Sir
William Jenner can satisfy himself with the reflection that if his
progenitor was distinguished for the number of England’s adversaries he
placed _hors de combat_, he and his father have been equally remarkable
for the number of lives they have saved.
Let us spend a few moments in a consideration of this great matter of
eating and drinking. And we will begin with drinking first. It is
curious how easily misled we might be by the corruptions that have taken
place in our nomenclature. The following surnames are in the London
Directory (1870): Brandy, Sherry, Gin, Port, Beer, Porter, Stout, Claret,
Portwine, Tee, and Coffee. Not one of these is what it seems to be. Not
one of these has anything to do with the beverage each severally
represents. “Portwine” is a mere modernisation of “Potewyne,” which in
the fourteenth century denoted the Poict tevine settler in England.
“Claret” was the pet name of “Clare.” “Stout” is of the nickname class,
“Porter” occupative, and “Port” is found originally as “Charles le Port,”
or “Oliver le Port,” showing that it was a sobriquet having reference to
the portly bearing of the progenitor. Tennyson speaks of
“A modern gentleman
Of stateliest port.”
It is the same with “Aleman.” This has no connection with the
public-house, but like “Almaine” and “D’Almaine” represents the old
German trader. The word was once in most familiar use. Coverdale’s
exposition of the twenty-fifth Psalm has on the title page, “Translated
out of hye Almayne (High Dutch) in to Englyshe, by Myles Coverdale,
1537.” No one will require me to prove that James Tee and Peter Coffee
do not represent our modern and favoured national breakfast beverages.
At least the first, if he did, must have sprung from some “heathen
Chinee,” who has immigrated to our shores. Such an elucidation, however,
would neither satisfy myself, my reader, nor James Tee himself, I
imagine.
But we have quite sufficient relics of the drinking propensities of the
English people in bygone days without seeking for them in their corrupted
forms. “Inman” and “Taverner” both represent the old keeper of houses of
entertainment. _Tavern_ is going out of fashion: _Public-house_ is a
modern term. Porson, the great Greek scholar, was unhappily given to
drink; but drunk or sober he had ever a Greek or Latin quotation at the
tip of his tongue. Reeling in the streets of Cambridge, he one day
tumbled down a flight of steps into a cellar-tavern. As they picked him
up, he was heard to mutter,
“Facilis est descensus t-averni.”
Our Church of England temperance lecturers could not take a better text
than this clever pun; for, unlike most puns, it contains a most
admonitory truth. An old tavern-sign in Cheshire, in the last century,
bore the following inscription:
“Good _bear_ sold here, our own _bruin_.”
This in the days of bear-baiting, for which Cheshire was famous, would be
very misleading to those of the country bumpkins who could read. Brewer
and Brewster need no explanation. Malter and Malster both exist, but I
do not see them in the London Directory. There is Malthouse, however,
and that is sometimes found as “Malthus”; just as loft-house, and
kirk-house, and bake-house or back-house have become Loftus, Kirkus, and
Bacchus. Viner and Vinter also stand in no fear of being misunderstood;
but Tunman, Tonman, Tunner, and Tonner, who casked and bottled the wine
that came from the Continent, would be less likely to be recognised. In
the “Confessio Amantis” it is said of Jupiter that he
“Hath in his cellar, as men say,
Two _townès_ full of love-drink,”—
where we must not suppose that the Thunderer had so capacious a cellar
that it would contain all the liquor that two whole towns might possess,
but that he had two _tuns_ or barrels of love potions. In fact, “tun”
was the universal term in use then, though _barrel_ or _cask_ has
superseded it in common parlance. We still talk of “tunnels” or
“tun-dishes,” the vessels used for transferring wine from barrel to
bottle. “Beer-brewer” was once a familiar surname, but it has become
obsolete. We all remember the old couplet—
“Hops, Reformation, baize, and beer,
Came into England all in one year.”
To make the bitter taste, wormwood had been the chief ingredient in
earlier days.
While on this subject, it is worth while inquiring whether or no we
possess in our directories any record of the drinking propensities of our
forefathers. That they were ever great “skinkers” everybody knows who
has studied the past with any degree of care. What the Water-poet said
somewhat coarsely of one may well be said of the many:—
“Untill hee falls asleepe,
He skinks and drinkes;
And then like to a bore,
He winkes and stinkes.”
Even the “Friar,” according to Chaucer,
“strong was as a champioun,
And knew wel the tavernes in every toun,
And every hosteler and gay tapstere,
Better than a lazar or a beggere.”
In spite of these acknowledged facts, however, I am happy to say there is
not a single “Drunkard” in the London Directory. Nevertheless, in our
older registers the tale is not so assuring. There has been a tendency
during the last two hundred years to shuffle off certain objectionable
names, which our earlier forefathers did not seem to be ashamed of. Who
of my readers would like to have been officially registered as “Maurice
Druncard,” or “Jakes Drynk-ale,” or worse still, “Geoffrey
Dringke-dregges”? Who of my readers would like to sign himself in a
marriage record as “Robert le Sot,” or as “Thomas Sour-ale”? Even “John
Swete-ale” would scarcely have relished the sobriquet if he had lived in
this more punctilious age of ours. Where could the young lady be found
who would forego the charms of spinsterhood to be wedded to an “Arnold
Scutel-mouth”—(what a capacious mouth it must have been!) “Alice
Gude-ale-house” may have been a thoroughly honest and respectable
landlady, but I don’t think she would have said “no,” if some smart and
worthy younker had offered her the refusal of his name.
Every one of these entries I have myself copied from authentic registers.
Curious, and yet not curious, is it that not one of them has survived.
So far as the Directory shows, we are the soberest and most temperate
nation on the face of the earth. Thus do we throw a mantle over our
great national vice. Even when we cannot get rid of the fact, we manage
to smooth it over with a sesquipedalian gloss. A woman in the middle and
higher ranks never gets drunk now-a-days. She is a suffering martyr to
dipsomania! How thankful we should be for a Bible that says “Be not
drunk.”
Who was the first English teetotaler? If we could find him, I suspect
our temperance friends would erect a monument to him. There are seven
“Drinkwaters” in the Metropolitan register; and I am glad to say that
Camden’s statement is wrong—it was only a guess—that Drinkwater is a
corruption of “Derwentwater.” In the first place it is an impossible
corruption; for the corruptive changes that pass over words and names are
not accidental, but follow fixed rules, so to say. In the second place,
I have been able to discover the name in its present guise up to the very
time when hereditary surnames were established. “John Drinkwater” occurs
in the Hundred Rolls, and “Richard Drynkwatere” in the Parliamentary
Writs. {120} No wonder their posterity has survived, no wonder their
name endures, for they can boast that in their sobriquet lies the record
of the first English temperance movement. In a word, Mr. Drinkwater
number one must have been the forerunner of total abstinence. None of
his neighbours could have pointed to him as a man who habitually, or
occasionally upon days of festival, “got tight”; his name, whereby they
had nicknamed him, was in itself a safeguard. His very title pledged him
to the principles it professed. No, he never “got tight,” or if he did,
like a good sailing craft, he was _watertight_. Some day I hope there
will be a monument erected to “Drinkwater Number One.” It might be in
the shape of a drinking fountain. What a heap of people there are buried
in state in Westminster Abbey who ought to give place to “Drinkwater
Number One”! But, alas! we don’t all get our deserts.
But enough of this. We have reminiscences in our directories of meat as
well as drink. Chaucer, speaking of the “Franklein,” says,—
“Withoute bake mete never was his house,
Of fish, and flesh, and that so plenteous,
It snowèd in his hous of mete and drink,
Of allè deintiès that men coud thinke.
* * * * *
Wo was his cook, but if his saucè were
Poignant and sharpe, and redy all his gear.”
This short and piquant description is important because of the language
used. We still use the word flesh in the alliterative phrase, “fish,
flesh, and fowl;” but we should never ask for a “pound of flesh” in a
butcher’s shop now, any more than we should talk of the importation of
“American flesh.” We should say “meat.” The distinction, however, is
preserved in this account, and we are reminded that before the Norman
“Butcher” or “Boucher,” and French “_Labouchere_” came in, the seller of
flesh-meat was called a “Fleshmonger” or “Flesher.” So late as 1528,
William Fleshmonger, D.C.L., was Dean of Chichester. I fear the name is
now obsolete. Our “Fleshers” still exist, but most of them have become
absorbed in “Fletcher,” which represented the trade of feathering arrows:
we still employ the word “fledge.” The Bowyers and Fletchers and
Arrowsmiths always marched abreast in the old trades’ processions of
London, or York, or Norwich. Harking back to Fletcher, however, I may
add, that in Scotland a butcher is still a flesher.
So far for the butcher. But the old rhyme speaks of—
“The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick-maker.”
We next turn, therefore, to the bread and biscuit department. We have
all heard how that foolish and imprudent
“Miss Baxter,
Refused a man before he axed her,”
but few of us, possibly, are aware that “Baker” and “Baxter” and
“Bagster,” all represent the same occupation, and that Baxter is only the
old “bakester,” the feminine of Baker, just as Webster is the feminine of
Webber, or Brewster of Brewer, or Blaxter (_i.e._ “Bleachster”) of
Bleacher, or Tapster of Tapper. {122} Langland, in his poem entitled
“The Vision of Piers Plowman,” speaks of
“Baksteres and brewesteres,
And bochiers manye.”
It will not be irreverent to note the coincidence, that no firm in
England have more closely associated their name with the printing of the
Bible, “The Bread of Life,” than the Bagsters. It reminds us of that
which was no accidental coincidence at all—namely, that Christ Himself,
“that true Bread which came down from Heaven,” appeared first at
Bethlehem, which literally means “house of bread,” _i.e._ “bread-shop,”
or “bake-house.” “Bacchus,” as already noted, is a corruption of
“bake-house,” while our Bullingers, Ballingers, Bollengers, and Furners,
and “Pesters,” represent the Norman-French bakers. Our “Cokes” and
“Cooks” represent the old public pie-shop, as well as the private
cuisine, and this explains the large number of the fraternity
immortalised in our directories. An old poem speaks of
“Drovers, cokes, and poulters,
Yermongers, pybakers, and waferers.”
There has ever been a great race in this matter between our “Bakers” and
“Cooks” or “Cookes.” Nearly thirty years ago Mr. Lowe, in his Tables of
Births, Deaths, and Marriages, gave the following analysis for one year
in England and Wales:—
_Births_. _Deaths_. _Marriages_.
Baker 1033 839 513
Cook 910 742 483
In the London Directory for 1871, there appeared 277 Bakers, 56 Baxters,
and 2 Bagsters, as against 194 Cooks, 89 Cookes, 1 Coke, 2 Cookmans, and
9 Cooksons. This preserves the same proportion.
In the couplet quoted above occurs the trade name of “Waferer.” This may
possibly sound an obsoletism to the reader. But if as a distinct
occupation the making of bread wafers is gone, or has fallen into the
hands of Messrs. Peek, Frean & Co., and other of our biscuit
manufacturers, it has left many memorials behind. Our “Wafers” have
fossilised its story in the Directory, and even in our Authorized Version
of the Bible (Lev. ii. 4). I have known one or two sturdy Protestants
who have objected to the translation: “And if thou bring an oblation of a
meat offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine
flour mingled with oil, or unleavened _wafers_ anointed with oil.” There
can be no doubt this is one more relic of Papal days in England. I have
seen an old will of the thirteenth century, in which the then Archbishop
of York made a small bequest to two “waferers,” who for many years had
honestly plied their trade of selling wafers at the Minster gate. Not
that the “waferer” confined himself to these. The author of Piers
Plowman, not to mention Chaucer himself, puts him among certain
disreputable street hawkers, who sold small spiced cakes; but then we
must remember that the “Malvern Dreamer” wrote his poem against the
lewdness of the priesthood—in fact, he was a trumpeter of the Reformation
to come—and he would not object to set down the humblest servitor of the
papal establishment, even a waferer, in as low a scale as he could. It
is this that to my mind makes the history of English surnames so
interesting. If we visit Pompeii we see in the streets and chambers that
have been cleared of débris the very accidents of life and thought
well-nigh 2000 years ago. We have but to clear away the little
corruptions of spelling or pronunciation which have befallen these
old-fashioned names, and spell-bound we are gazing into the life—the
every-day religious and social life—of our English forefathers four
hundred years ago. The antiquary and the philologist alike may take up
the London Directory with reverence, for therein lies a fund of
information to his hand, which it might occupy months of pain and trouble
otherwise to accumulate.
Having dealt with “the butcher” and “the baker,” there is yet the
“candlestick-maker” to be considered. Our “Chandlers” and “Candlers”
explain themselves. Our “Turners” turned out all manner of wooden gear,
and doubtless candlesticks were amongst them. There are plenty of
“Bowlers” in the Directory, men who made bowls or dishes of wood. The
twenty-four “Spooners” {126} set down in the same record, fashioned
spoons. Forks being a modern invention, there are no “Forkers”; but
“Cutler” abounds on every side in the metropolis, not to mention the
“Cutlers’ Alms-houses,” and the “Cutlers’ Hall.” “Ironmonger” also is
well represented. Those who manufactured crocks—that is, any glazed
vessel of earthenware (whence our modern term “crockery”)—were called
“Crockers,” or “Crokers.” There are over thirty Crockers in the
Directory, and six Crokers. A hundred “Potters” figure in the same list.
Some reader may inquire, “Have we any relics of the medical practitioner
in the Directory? Was there any one who was professionally employed to
see children through the measles, to extract an obnoxious tooth, to lay a
plaister, to open a vein, to mix a potion, or to generally repair a
debilitated system?” The London Directory replies unhesitatingly in the
affirmative; and yet look out Doctor, or Surgeon, or Physician, and all
are conspicuous by their absence: although, to do the last justice, he
has bequeathed us four Physicks. The reason of this is simple. These
are new terms. The old practitioner went generally by the name of
“Leech.” There are forty-seven Leaches, one Leachman, and eleven Leeches
in the Directory. Bleeding with leeches was evidently no unfamiliar
spectacle in old days, especially when we recall that our forefathers
were wont to be very energetic with the knife and fork—or spoon, I should
say, for they had no forks. “Chemist,” too, is a new
sobriquet,—therefore he is unrepresented; but there is one “Pothecary,”
and Potticary is fairly common in other parts of England. As for the
Barber, the surgeon and dentist of former times, no wonder there is a
whole column of his descendants. His custom was to hang a basin at the
end of his pole, with a string of teeth, the longer the better, to show
what a roaring trade he drove,—for he could not advertise his business in
the newspaper as people do in these remarkable days. In the window were
ranged cups or goblets with a few leeches in. These
“Did well his threefold trade explain,
Who shaved, drew teeth, and breathed a vein.”
In the latter decades of last century there was a celebrated surgeon in
Manchester of the name of “Killer,” which is a corruption of “Kilner,”
just as Miller and Milner are identical. But if this was an unfortunate
name for a surgeon, what shall we say of “Kilmister” and “Kilmaster,”
which may be found in and about the county of Gloucester! How
bloodthirsty they look!—and yet the truer form Kilminster, in the London
Directory, strips them, by the addition of but one letter, of their
terrors, and shows them to be of local origin. In one of the earliest
metropolitan directories appears a Mr. Toothaker! It was not an uncommon
name, for in 1635 there embarked in the _Hopewell_ for New England, Roger
Toothaker and Margaret Toothaker! I do not think the name to be of
German origin, as Mr. Lower supposes, but one of those local English
surnames ending in “acre,” like Whittaker or Oldacre. The sobriquet,
however, reads oddly enough, and looks as if the services of the barber
were much required.
Turning to dress for a moment, we may notice that there are nearly 300
Walkers in the London Directory, almost 100 Tuckers, 80 Fullers, and 20
Tozers. All were concerned once with the combing, fulling, dyeing, and
thickening of woollen goods. In Piers Plowman mention is made of
“fulling under foot.” This refers to the practice of _treading_ the
cloth, before machinery was introduced. He who did this was a _walker_.
Wycliffe, speaking of Christ’s transfiguration, describes Christ’s dress
as shining, so as “no fullers or walkers of cloth” could whiten them.
The “tozer” or “toser,” or “touser,” toused or teased the fabric, so as
to raise a nap on it. We talk of _teasing_ now in the sense of worrying
people with attentions. This is the secondary meaning that has grown
upon the other. “Tozer” and “Toser” are the favourite spellings of this
occupation in the Directory. We are still fond of calling a pugnacious
dog “Towser.” _Tucker_ was a Flemish introduced term for a “dyer.” Many
of the words connected with the manufacture of cloth came in with the
Flemish artisans.
I will only mention one article of dress, and conclude. There is no
“Cobler,” or “Cobbler,” in the Directory, but there used to be. As a
mere patchwork business it has got into disrepute; so it has been got rid
of by its owners. Christopher Shoomaker was burnt at Newbury during the
days of persecution, and Foxe tells his story in his customary quaint
fashion; but it has ever been a rare name in England, though common
enough in Germany as Schumacher, or Schumann. The last form will be
familiar to all musicians. Camden, in a list of occupations, inserts
“Chaucer,” appending by way of definition, “id est, Hosier.” The chaucer
or hosier of those days fitted to the leg from the knee downwards the
strong leather legging. This was called a chaussure. Chaucer is
obsolete in England, though not in France. Hosier and Hozier still
exist. Every Londoner knows of the “Cordwainers’ Hall,” though perhaps
he has never seen it. It is not more than forty years ago that you might
not uncommonly see “cordwainer” over a shop door instead of the strictly
modern “shoemaker”; while in our directories “Cordwainer,” or “Cordiner,”
or “Codner,” is a customary name. Sir Thopas is described thus:—
“His hair, his beard was like safroun,
That to his girdle raught (reached) adown,
His shoon of cordewane.”
We have only to turn cordwain into cordovan, to see that this was a
specially excellent leather, imported in early times from Cordova, in
Spain, to make “kid-boots.” In fact, the cordwainer was the West-end
boot-maker. But this is not all. In the Directory for 1871 there appear
twelve Suters, three Sowters, six Soutters, seven Souters, one Soutar,
and three Soustars. I need not tell any Scotchman what this means,
because every shoemaker or cobbler on the other side of the Tweed, except
in very fashionable quarters, is still a “souter.” Souster is but one
more instance of the feminine (?) termination.
I might prolong this chapter to any extent, but I must refrain. I might
have called attention to our many “Glovers” and “Ganters,” who sold
gloves, or our Gantletts and Gauntletts, who were in the same business,
but were known best by the gauntlet that hung as a sign over the door. I
might have pointed to our Girdlers and Bracegirdles, who were busy enough
when the modern suspender was unknown; or to our many Pointers, who
manufactured the points or tags by which hose and doublet were protected
from divorcement. I might have asked the reader to survey with me the
rows of Cheesemans, Cheesmans, Cheesewrights, Cheeswrights, and
Firmingers, reminiscences of the good old farmers’ produce, which was the
first, second and third course of every peasant’s dinner. I might have
shown that our Challeners and Challoners manufactured or sold blankets,
made at first in Chalons; or that our Helliers, or Hilliers, or Hillyers,
were thatchers or tylers; that our Shoosmiths forged shoes for horses;
that our Wrights worked chiefly in wood, our Smiths in iron. I might
have run through a list of rural occupations, such as Coward for
cow-herd, Calvert for calve-herd, Shepherd for sheep-herd, or “Herd” or
“Heard” or “Hurd” itself for the tender of cattle in general. From all
temptations of this kind I must stay myself. I will only say that if my
reader should be interested enough to wish to carry on such
investigation, he can do so in my book of “English Surnames,” which I
think I can truly say is quite exhaustive of those now forgotten and
obsolete titles of mediæval occupation. I have mentioned Wright: let me
quote a rhyming pun on his good old title:
“At a tavern one night,
Messrs. More, Strange, and Wright,
Met to drink, and their good thoughts exchange;
Says More, ‘Of us three,’
The whole will agree,
There’s only one Knave, and that’s Strange.’
“‘Yes,’ says Strange, rather sore,
‘I’m sure there’s one More,
A most terrible knave, and a fright,
Who cheated his mother,
His sister, and brother.’
‘Oh, yes,’ replied More, ‘that is Wright.’”
On the whole, Mr. More got the best of the argument.
CHAPTER IX.
NICKNAMES.
WE have now reached the last class of surnames—that which we have called
_Nicknames_. We have dealt with _local_ names, _baptismal_ names,
_official_ names, and _occupative_ names. With _Nicknames_ we conclude
our list. John At-wood, John Thomson, John Chamberlain, and John Baker,
would respectively represent the classes already discussed. John Fox
might as fitly act as the representative of our nicknames.
If _Nickname_ be but prosthetically put for _an ekename_—that is, an
added name, a, name appended to the Christian name to eke out or complete
a man’s identity—then all surnames are nicknames and all nicknames are
surnames. It is better, therefore, that I should state at the outset
what I mean by a chapter on Nicknames.
I intend to take in only such sobriquets as were affixed upon individuals
by their neighbours to express some physical or mental peculiarity,
complimentary or the reverse, whether given in jest or earnest.
This is a very nondescript class, and is therefore much better
illustrated than explained. If a man developed some grotesque or pitiful
characteristic, either in his bodily shape or his mental attributes, it
was just as easy to nickname him by the English term that most plainly
described it, or to style him by some name of the lower creation that was
supposed to represent that particular characteristic. Thus if Thomas
were of crafty disposition, it would be as easy to nickname him Thomas
Sly as Thomas Fox. Thus both Sly and Fox are nicknames. There is
scarcely a moral attribute that is not found in our directories. In the
same receptacle almost every name of every living creature in earth, sea,
and air, is to be seen. Indeed, with respect to this latter class, we
find in later days a reversal of the statement met with in Genesis ii.
19. There it is said, “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every
beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam
to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living
creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle,
and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.” I say this
statement was reversed four or five hundred years ago by our English
forefathers. They gave the cattle, the fish, and the birds, men’s names,
and gave to men the names of the cattle, the fish, and the birds. There
is not a single domestic animal which was not familiarly known to our
ancestors by a nickname taken from our baptismal nomenclature, while, on
the other hand, there is not a single domestic animal whose proper name
was not affixed as a nickname upon some member of the rational community.
I will give an illustration or two of what I mean. They shall be taken
from the London Directory. Spenser says,—
“The ruddock warbles soft.”
Many of my readers will not know what a ruddock is. It was the old
proper name for the robin-redbreast. Chaucer has the name in “The
Assembly of Fowls.” But our forefathers nicknamed this homely bird
robin. Every family then had a “Robin” in the household. Out of
fondness for the bird that did not desert them when the winter snow
enveloped the trees with a white mantle, but came hopping to the doorstep
for a crumb, they styled it by the familiar term of robin. This nickname
became so popular that it all but pushed out the more orthodox term of
_ruddock_. But there are three Ruddicks and five Ruddocks in the London
Directory! What does this show? Why, that as the man’s name of Robin
was given to the bird, so the bird’s name of ruddock was given to the
man. We find a Ralph Ruddoc registered so early as the Hundred Rolls.
No doubt he got the nickname from some peculiar redness of the chin or
throat, or because of some peculiarity in his habits or demeanour, which
struck his neighbours with a fancied similarity to the bird. A sparrow
was always called “Phip,” from Philip. On the other hand, I find no less
than twenty Sparrows in the London Directory. Thus a pye became a
Mag-pie, from Margaret, and we still chant in nursery song,—
“See-saw,
Margery Daw.”
Having given them Margaret, they have presented us with many of our Daws,
all our Pyes, and the one Pie of the London Directory. How odd that
while, as I have shown, there are so many hundred Cooks in the
metropolis, they can only turn out one Pie! There is a large assortment
of Cockerells, Cockrells, and Cockrills in the Directory. Young cocks
still go by this name in Cumberland. Driving in my dogcart to visit a
sick woman on the hill-side the other day, I went by a barn-door on which
I saw a placard advertising the sale of fine healthy “cockerels.” But I
may not linger. We may see in this same metropolitan record Swans,
Finches, Herons, Cootes, Ducks, Drakes, Woodcocks, Partridges, Goslings,
and Gosses, by the dozen. Gosling is often but a corruption of Joscelyn,
and so is not of the nickname class. Goss is but the old spelling of
“goose.” In our older records we find it registered as Peter le Goos,
Amicia le Gos, or John le Gos. All our Pinnicks and Pinnocks are from
the old pinnock or pinnick, the hedge-sparrow:—
“Thus in the pinnick’s nest the cuckoo lays,
Then, easy as a Frenchman, takes her flight.”
There are eleven Wrens hopping about our London streets, and I daresay
they often stand—not on one leg, of course—to stare at St. Paul’s
Cathedral, and to think with pride on Christopher Wren, and his epitaph,
“Si monumentum quæris, circumspice.” There are fifteen Nightingales,
too, but whether or no they can all sing sweetly I cannot say. One of
the happiest anagrams ever written was that upon “Florence Nightingale,”
which by a transposition of letters makes, “Flit on, cheering angel.” It
is as good as “Horatio Nelson,” which can be turned into “Honor est a
Nilo.”
Many of these nicknames we see for ourselves could not have been intended
to be very complimentary. A single quotation will prove this. We know
that every great personage up to the middle of the sixteenth century had
his or her professional fool, or joker. The “privy expenses” of
Elizabeth of Yorke for March, 1502, have this entry:—“Item: delivered to
John Goose, my Lord of Yorke’s fole (fool), in rewarde for bringing a
carppe (carp) to the Quene, 12_d._” Here is a palpable nickname for the
office, the term itself being taken from that bird which was popularly
supposed to reign supreme over simpletondom. “You goose” is still
commonly applied to a child that has done something silly. That our
“Gosses” should retain a forgotten and obsolete spelling is very natural.
There are three Patches in the Directory. I crave their pardon for
reminding them that their progenitor held the honourable office of “fool”
to some English king or baron. We are all familiar with
“The king of shreds and patches.”
It was through this peculiarity in his dress the official fool got the
sobriquet of “Patch.” Henry the Eighth’s fool bore this name: “Item:
paied to the same Pyne for 2 payr of hosen for Patche—x_s._,” says an old
book of “Privy Purse Expenses” belonging to that king.
Speaking of birds, we may mention the name of Spark, or Sparke. Few of
my readers probably are aware that this is but a corruption of
Sparrowhawk. Sparhawk was the intermediate form, and was once very
common. It was a Mr. Sparrowhawk to whom the great Thomas Fuller
jocularly put the question, “What is the difference between an owl and a
_sparrowhawk_?” His companion at once retorted with the reply, “An owl
is _fuller_ in the head, _fuller_ in the face, and _Fuller_ all over!”
This was but repaying the historian in his own coin, for no one has made
so many puns and plays on names and words as Fuller. He carried it to an
extent which in our day would be considered profane. Many will recall
his prayer in rhyme—
“My soul is stainèd with a dusty colour,—
Let Thy Son be the sope, I’ll be the Fuller.”
Again, in a spirit of devout meekness, he writes, “As for other stains
and spots upon my soul, I hope that He (be it spoken without the least
verbal reflection) who is the Fuller’s sope, will scour them forth with
His merit, that I may appear clean by God’s mercy.” It was but natural,
that when this great religious punster died, a suggestion should have
been made that his epitaph should run thus: “Here lies Fuller’s earth.”
{138} This was not done, and just as well it was not; for if puns are
ever objectionable, it is when they appear in epitaphs. Nevertheless,
one of the finest instances of paranomasia on record is to be found on
the tablet to Foote’s memory in Westminster Abbey:—
“Here lies one Foote, whose death may thousands save;
For now Death hath one Foote within the grave.”
A similar interchange of _nominal_ courtesies is observable in the names
of cattle and wild beasts. Pigg, Hogg, Stott, Colt, Bullock, Duncalf,
Wolf, Lamb, Kidd, Bacon, Grice, and Wildbore all speak for themselves;
while in our North English Oliphants and Olivants we recognize the old
spelling of “elephant.” No doubt the original bearer of the nickname was
of unusually large proportions even for the border country of England and
Scotland. Speaking of Lamb, we are reminded that a brother-in-law of
John Wesley bore the name of Whitelamb, and therefore could scarcely be
called, under any circumstances, a black sheep! There are six Bears and
eighty Bulls in the Directory. The _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1807
records the death of “Savage Bear, Esquire,” who was a resident in Kent.
In the same article mention is made of a Mr. Mould, cheesemonger, in
Newgate Street. But we have Bearmans, Bullards (that is, Bullwards),
Bulmans, and Bullpitts in our Directory, too. It was not till 1835
bear-baiting and bull-baiting were forbidden by Act of Parliament. It
had reigned at the head of English pastimes for six centuries. Hence it
was a common inn-sign. The oldest hostel in London was supposed to be
the “Bear,” on the Southwark side of old London Bridge. Hence an old
poem says,—
“We came to the Bear, which we soon understood
Was the first house in Southwark built after the flood.”
Every rich man had his bearward, and the royal houses had their “master
of the king’s bears.” Both Mary and Elizabeth enjoyed a good baiting,
whether of bulls or bears. The Puritans of course were against it, and
so far were in advance of the times, but it is a peculiar feature of
their opposition that they scarcely ever refer to the cruelty of the
sport. Orthodox and somewhat dull Pepys describes in 1666 how he saw
some good sports of the bulls tossing the dogs—one into the very boxes.
A leading Puritan minister not twenty years later is always found, by his
own published diary, to have sent his children to the cock-pit on
Shrove-Tuesday to witness the “throwing-at-the-cock,” and he piously
prays they may be preserved from harm while away (“Newcome’s Diary,”
Cheetham Society’s Publications). Thus it is we find so many “Cockers”
and “Cockmans” in the Directory. As for our “Cocks” or “Coxes,” every
young gallant who showed determined pluck, or strutted in his gait, or
gave himself airs, was nicknamed from the cockpit or barn-door
dictionary. No wonder our Directory teems with them, for it would be
looked upon in bygone days as a pretty compliment. This is the origin of
“cock” in such mediæval pet names as Wilcock, Jeffcock, Batcock and
Badcock (Bartholomew), Simcock, Hancock and Handcock (Hans, _i.e._
Johannes), Bawcock (Baldwin), Pidcock and Peacock (Peter), Philcock, now
Philcox, and Adcock or Atcock (Adam). To give my readers a list of the
views propounded as to the meaning of this desinence would take too much
space. Suffice it to say that nothing has seemed too absurd for those
who love “guesses at truth,” without ever guessing right, to advance.
Every rustic lusty lad was “Cock,” especially if he had a perky cocky way
of his own. And in these names of Philcock or Jeffcock, we simply see
the old-fashioned way of hailing Philip or Jeffery as, “Well, Jeff-cock,
lad, how art thou?” “Pretty well, Phil-cock, thank’ee.” In the old
play, _Gammer Gurton’s Needle_, Gammer’s servant lad is called simply
“Cock,” without the baptismal name being appended at all. It is so in
the mediæval poem entitled “Cocke Lorell’s Bote.”
But we have got among the birds again. We must hark back to our
four-footed friends. There are no “Donkeys” in the London
Directory—probably the only place in the world where they are not to be
found. But this may be accounted for, perhaps, because there are no
Thistles there either. Nevertheless, had there been an English Directory
in the year when Domesday Book was compiled, it would have been
otherwise; for, thistles or no thistles, “Roger the Ass” is among the
list of tenants under the crown. Here we have been liberal: for we have
presented our good thistle-loving friend with no less than three of our
baptismal names. In the north of England, where Cuthbert was the
favourite appellation for three centuries at least, he is called a
_Cuddy_, that being the pet form of the saintly sobriquet. {141} In more
southern regions he is known as _Ned_ or _Neddy_, from Edward. And north
and south alike, _Jack_-ass is familiar to all. It is curious to notice
how a name that has become opprobrious can be dropped. “Rascal” was one
of our commonest surnames while the term only meant a lean, ragged deer;
but when it was passed on to a _herd_ of worthless folk the surname
disappeared. One of the latest was Robert Rascal, who, according to
Foxe, was persecuted for his religion in 1517.
I must not omit the mention of one or two of our household favourites.
There are five Catts in our London Directory, entered in old days as Adam
le Kat, or Milo le Chat. In the reign of Richard the Third, there was a
rhyme to this effect:—
“The Rat, the Cat, and Lovel the Dog,
Rule all England under the Hog.”
The Hog was the king, Rat was Ratcliffe, and Cat, Catesby. It is not
often we hear of cat, dog, and rat, uniting together to worry others, and
not one another! If I recal my history correctly, however, they did fall
out in the end.
There must have been something sleek and smooth, if not stealthy, about
the progenitor of our friends the Catts, I fear. But if our mouse-loving
friends gave us their appellation, we were bountiful in return. For
three hundred years the most familiar term for a cat was “Gib,” from
Gilbert. Hamlet says:—
“For who that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide?”
And in Peele’s “Edward the First,” the Novice says to the Friar:—
“Now, master, as I am true wag,
I will be neither late nor lag,
But go and come with gossip’s cheer
Ere Gib, our cat, can lick her ear.”
That Gib was short for Gilbert, our Gibbs, Gibsons, Gibbins, and Gibbons
can prove. But “Gib” for a cat is obsolete, I fear; and now we speak of
a Tom-cat. A female cat was called a Tib-cat, or Tibert, from Tibb, or
Tibot, pet forms of Theobalda, which at one period as Tibota was our
commonest girl’s name. In “Gammer Gurton’s Needle,” one of our very
earliest dramatic plays, Dicon (Richard) says:—
“To brawle with you about her cocke,
For well I heard Tyb say,
The cocke was roasted in your house,
To breakfast yesterday.”
Tyb was Gammer Gurton’s “mayde.” In the same play the cat is “Gib.” The
maid says of Gammer while stitching with her needle,—
“Gyb, our cat, in the milke-pan,
She spied over head and ears.”
The Kitcat Club took its name from one Christopher Cat, who kept an
eating-house in London, where the club members met. The pet name of
Christopher was Kit (whence our Kitts, and Kitsons, and the island of St.
Kitts, _i.e._ St. Christopher): a conjunction of the Christian and
surname formed the term. I may here add that Bishop Ken represents the
Norman word for the dog, an old form being Eborard le Ken, or Thomas le
Chene. We still employ the term _Kennel_, which is from the same root.
This interchange of civilities has not been so largely cultivated between
mankind and the finny tribe—at least, not in England. Boys talk, ’tis
true, of a Jack-sharp, and fishermen of a Jack-pike or a John Dory; but
there we end our distribution of nominal courtesies. But the denizens of
our streams and becks and estuaries, whether in fresh water or salt, have
turned the tables on us with a vengeance. No doubt, as the penalty of
possessing certain peculiarities in gait, or habit, or complexion, many
of our forefathers got nicknamed _Grayling_, _Tench_, _Pike_, _Herring_,
_Pilchard_, or _Sturgeon_. _Whale_ would be a nickname for a man of huge
bulk. Thomas _Spratt_ was Bishop of Rochester in 1688. We are all
familiar with _Chubb_, on account of his patent locks. A Mr. _Codde_
married a Miss Salt, and their first child bore the name of Salt Codde.
{144a} This is not more remarkable than “Preserved Fish,” which figured
for some years in the New York Directory, and may be there now for what I
know to the contrary. A Mrs. _Salmon_ is said to have presented her
husband with three children at one birth, and to commemorate such an
auspicious event, he had them christened by the names of Pickled, Potted,
and Fresh. I do not vouch for the truth of this story! {144b} I may
observe here that it is somewhat remarkable that quaint Isaac Walton, the
great master, rather than “disciple of the rod,” wrote the life of the
“judicious Hooker.” Most anglers are disposed to think that Walton
himself was the most “judicious hook-er” that England has ever seen. At
least, his success with the fish-basket was so great, and his meditations
while occupied with his favourite pastime were so wise, that cynical
Samuel Johnson could not say of _his_ fishing rod, that there was a worm
at one end and a fool at the other.
Talking about fish, what an odd thing it seems that there should be 181
Fishers and Fischers in the London Directory, only eight Rivers to fish
in, and only sixteen Fish to catch! Nor is this all: they have only
three Rodds amongst them, thirty Lines or Lynes, thirty Hooks and Hookes,
six Worms, nine Grubbs, and not a single “Fly.” Nor do I see what they
can want with three Basketts; surely one would be enough for but sixteen
Fish. Speaking, too, of Fish and Worms, we must not forget the old
epitaph on Mr. Fish:—
“Worm’s bait for fish,
But here’s a sudden change,
Fish’s bait for worms,—
Is not that passing strange?”
The reptile and insect world is not without traces of representation in
the London Directory. There is no Alligator or Crocodile there, ’tis
true; but there might have been, had the following story occurred a few
generations earlier than it did. Not very long ago, in a northern town,
there was a town councillor who delighted in the use of sesquipedalian
English. He would never employ a short word if he could lay hands on a
long one. He was rather of a positive turn, too. One day a fellow
officer made a certain statement before the Council. Up jumps our
friend, and cries out, “That allegation is false, and—and the allegator
knows it.” He has been styled “Alligator” ever since. Fly, Wasp, Bee,
Gnat, and Bugg once existed, but only Bee and Bugg remain. Black-adder
was formerly common, and still lingers in the Metropolitan Directory as
Blackadar. Bugg, however, can claim a local origin, for there can be
little or no doubt that it is but one of the endless forms of Borough,
found as Brough, Bury, Burgh, Burge, and Burke. Nevertheless Thomas Hood
did not seem to like it:—
“A name—if the party had a voice—
What mortal would be a Bugg by choice,
As a Hogg, a Grubb, or a Chubb rejoice,
Or any such nauseous blazon?
Not to mention many a vulgar name,
That would make a doorplate blush for shame,
If doorplates were not so _brazen_.”
“John Frog” occurs in the Hundred Rolls, but he jumped out of our
Directories several centuries ago: and, possibly because his company did
not please him, has never jumped in again. Tadpole, ’tis true, exists:
but as Tadpoles in our Directories never manifest any further stage of
development, the Frogs have never received any increase from them!
But these are not the only names we owe to the animal creation. Our
forefathers loved descriptive compounds. After all, there is nothing
very terrible in being nicknamed a “wolf,” or a “stott,” or a “peacock,”
or a “buzzard,” or a “salmon,” or a “fly.” Our national nickname is
“John Bull,” and who ever got into a state of virtuous indignation about
that? Yet “bull” is not, taken all round, a very complimentary
sobriquet. He’s a stubborn, bellicose, lumbersome kind of creature; and
it’s wonderful what a little matter, such as a red rag, will set him into
a fury! How frequently we term a man a pig-headed fellow. That was a
favourite kind of nickname in old days, and our registers are not without
traces of this. We have still Colfox, that is, sly fox. Herring is
common; but once we had Freshherring, Goodherring, Badherring, and
Rottenherring in our Directories. Pigg, Grice, and Hogg are still to the
fore; but Cleanhog, Cleangrice, and Pigsflesh are all gone. Hogsflesh,
as stated before, still exists in the South of England; and a rhyme says
that—
“Worthing is a pretty place,
And if I’m not mistaken,
If you can’t get any butchers’ meat,
There’s Hogsflesh and Bacon.”
Other compound nicknames of the same class are Poorfish, Catsnose,
Cocksbrain, Buckskin, Goosebeak, Bullhead, and Calvesmaw; but they have
all been shuffled out of our Directories, to give place to sobriquets
more pleasant of origin, and more euphonious in sound.
In my next chapter I shall proceed with this subject, and, if I can
retain my readers’ attention, we shall discuss Nicknames taken from moral
and mental and physical characteristics—not affixed through the agency of
typical animal names, but by the ordinary and more direct phraseology.
CHAPTER X.
NICKNAMES (_continued_).
OUR last chapter was devoted to the consideration of nicknames of a
particular class—viz., animal names. We said that, to all intents and
purposes, Sly and Fox were the same—one representing a term for cunning,
the other a type. But while re-asserting this statement, we are met by a
difficulty. Many generations have elapsed since such a nickname as Sly
was fixed upon its original bearer. Did the word “sly” then mean what it
now means? Was the name “Sly” given as a disparaging sobriquet, or a
compliment? Most probably the latter. Sly, or Sleigh, implied honest
dexterity long before the juggler with his sleight-of-hand tricks ruined
its verbal reputation. Even two hundred years ago only, when a
well-known poet spoke of a good man as one whom—
“Graver age had made wise and sly,”
he was not misunderstood.
It is so with many other nicknames; and this explains the fact of their
existence. Had Sly or Sleigh or Slee been confined to its present
meaning three hundred years ago, we should not have found it in our
directories in 1878. Our Seeleys and Selymans, our Sillys and Sillymans
would probably have become nominally defunct, if silly had conveyed its
modern meaning to the ears of our forefathers. “Silly,” in former days,
implied _guilelessness_; we still use it in this sense in the phrase
“silly lamb.” An old proverb says:—
“Whylst grasse doth growe,
Oft starves the seely steede.”
The best instance, however, I know of this use of the word is in Foxe’s
Martyrology, where, describing the martyrdom of a young child not seven
years old, he says: “The captain, perceiving the child invincible, and
himself vanquished, committed the silly soul, the blessed babe, the child
uncherished, to the stinking prison.” Here, of course, _silly_ is the
equivalent of innocent, or inoffensive. Our Sillymans and Sillys and
Seeleys may fairly claim that theirs was a complimentary nickname. I
mention these as instances only of a large class.
When we come to _bonâ-fide_ cases, we shall discover, not with any
surprise, that almost all our nicknames are complimentary! Our
forefathers must have been a most highly respectable set of fellows,
judging by this famous Directory. They never got drunk, for who can find
a man who but rarely transgressed the limit of sobriety in our
directories? There is not a trace of meanness or cowardice about them.
’Tis true Coward is a common name, but then, as already shown, it is not
a nickname at all, but an occupation, being none other than our old
friend the cow-herd. On the other hand, see what a large number of
Doughtys there are, and Bolds, and Gallants, and Prews, all backed up by
Hardy, who worthily sits in the Cabinet. We meet with courtesy in our
Curtis’s and Curteis’s; with nobility in our Goodharts and Trumans; with
humility in our Humbles and Meeks; with kindliness in our Gentles and
Sweets; with firmness in our Steadys and Graves; and with liveliness in
our Sharps, Quicks, and Wittys. Nor are more abstract charms wanting.
It can be truly said that there are plenty of Graces, for at least twelve
appear. Faith and Hope are there,—only Charity is wanting. Honour,
Virtue, and Wisdom, however, make up in some degree for the absence of
that gentle quality. Some people are “Good,” but to be “Goodenough” and
“Thorowgood” or “Thoroughgood,” let alone “Toogood,” seems only possible
in our nomenclature. Many people, too, are “Perfect” in it, and “Sin” is
not there, though “Want” is. Some cynic may say that Truth is
conspicuous by its absence, but how can that be in the presence of five
“Veritys”? Not merely are we in the atmosphere of constant Spring, and
Blossoms, and Budds, but twenty-five Summers appear in the same year, and
Rosinbloom blows the twelve months round! The “Tabernacle,” the
“Temple,” and endless Churches for Churchfolk, Kirks for Scotch people,
and Chapells for Nonconformists, are to be descried on every hand.
Service is carried on from year to year, to suit all tastes; there are
seven Creeds; Heaven and Paradise, with their attendant Bliss, complete
the picture. Oh, what a wonderful community we seem to be in this
directory of ours! Human nature would appear to have overridden and
crushed all its weaker infirmities, and issued forth into something like
what its poets have loved to depicture it. The London Directory is the
great parish register of Utopia.
That some sad infirmities did once really exist our olden records show,
if our directories of to-day do not. Who could conceive, after this last
picture, that Bustler and Meddler once loved to make their objectionable
presence felt; that Foolhardy and Giddyhead won for themselves a vain
notoriety; that Cruel and Fierce delighted to display their unbridled
passions; that Wilful and Sullen fed their hidden and unconsumed fires;
and that Milksop and Sparewater had the impudence to show their faces in
polite society? Yet such was the case! If there had been a directory of
London published by authority under the reign of Henry the Seventh, all
these names, and a hundred others of a similar kind, would have found
habitation in its pages.
We may here notice that two modern instances of nicknames occupied public
attention a few months ago. They are of advantage as showing how easily
and even naturally sobriquets of this class fix themselves upon the
bearers, and how readily they are accepted by the same. They are the
more worthy of attention because they are borne by men of high estate.
It was less than a year ago that the English papers announced the death
of a well-known native Indian merchant who had been knighted by Her
Majesty. What was his surname? Nothing more nor less than Readymoney!
The worthy merchant commonly signed himself as such. He was notorious
for his princely generosity, and one of his peculiarities was to pay down
at once whatever sums he devoted to the different charities he
patronised. So well-known was he for this practice, that he acquired the
nickname of Readymoney. The other instance is that of the King of Bonny.
He was brought up in England, and is one of the first African potentates
who has embraced and been trained, in the religion of Jesus Christ. A
large amount of pepper has come to England every year from his dominions,
so the traders got into the way of styling him King Pepper. The natives
being more accustomed to liquid letters, turned it into Pepple. What is
the consequence? The king has taken it for his surname; and when he
appeared two years ago at St. Paul’s Cathedral, in the service held by
the Pan-Anglican Synod, the newspapers did not fail to note the fact, and
without any thought of depreciation of his high position as an African
potentate, gravely announced that in the vast congregation that swelled
the limits of the metropolitan cathedral, was to be seen, joining
reverently in the service, His Majesty King Pepple! What can more
vividly demonstrate to us in the nineteenth century the ease with which
these nicknames—some sober, some ludicrous, some complimentary, some the
reverse—would be affixed to certain of our forefathers four or five
hundred years ago, and cling to them and to their posterity to all time?
Every old list of names had its large proportion of nicknames. Take the
members of the York Corpus Christi Guild of the fifteenth century. We
find such associates as Henry Langbane (Longbone), John Ambuler (from his
gait), Thomas Chaste, William Fellowship (from his social habits), Agnes
Blakmantyll (Black-mantle, from some favoured garment she wore), Margaret
Amorous, Thomas Brownlace, William Fairbarne (pretty child), Agnes Fatty,
William Goodbarne (good child), William Goodlad, John Godherd (if not
Goddard, then Good-herd), Richard Gayswain, Richard Preitouse, John
Young, Robert Pepirkorne, John Makblyth (Make-blithe, a very pretty
name), Isabella Maw, William Wyldest, Peter Trussebutt, John Handelesse,
John Corderoy, John Bentbow, Robert Sparrow, and William Nutbrown. These
are all trades members of the same guild in the then small city of York.
Their origins are as simple as they are various. In Makeblithe,
Fellowship, and Gayswain, we see a joyous disposition; in Peppercorn and
Truss-butt, the owners’ business; in Amorous, Chaste, or Goodbairn, moral
characteristics; in Blackmantle and Brownlace, peculiarities of habit; in
Longbone, Handless, and Nutbrown, bodily idiosyncracies. And so on with
the rest. What a mine of surnames is here opened out to view! How
largely representative is the London Directory, we have already seen in
the case of animal names, to which class belongs Robert Sparrow in the
above list.
In continuing the subject, it is at once manifest that we can but
generalize. We have had to do so with all the other classes; especially
are we compelled in the division we have styled “Nicknames.”
Look at bodily peculiarities. There is not a shape man can assume, but
is described in the Directory. There is not an accident that can befall
him but it is there recorded, just as if it were the entry book of cases
for a London hospital. There is not a peculiarity in his style of dress,
or management of his limbs, or complexion of his skin, or colour of his
hair, that is not set down with as great a care as if he were a suspected
character in a detective’s notebook. Nevertheless, let us be careful not
to fall into a trap. A hundred local names look very like nicknames.
Tallboy occurs twice in our Directory. These gentlemen represent the
Norman Talboys frequently found in Domesday Book. Longness, Thickness,
and Redness, may not mean Longnose, Thicknose, and Rednose, although nose
was “ness” in the days when these surnames arose. Thickness is known to
be local. Any sharp promontory on the coast is a Naze or Ness (_i.e._ a
Nose). Hence such a name as Dengeness in Kent. A Miss Charlotte Ness
inquired the meaning of the logical terms abstract and concrete. The
answer was given in verse:
“Say what is abstract, what concrete?
Their difference define.”
“They both in one fair person meet,
And that, dear maid, is thine.”
“How so? The riddle pray undo.”
“I thus your wish express:
For when I lovely Charlotte view,
I then view loveli-Ness.”
Still we may safely assume of the great majority that they are what they
seem to be. We will at once proceed to inspect some of them.
Let us begin with the head, keeping our eye meantime on the pages of the
Directory for evidence.
We have Heads (often local) and Tates many; indeed, they are truly
_tête-à-tête_ in the Directory, for of the latter no less than eleven are
in immediate proximity. We have Silverlock, Whitelock, or Whitlock,
Blacklock, and the remains of an old fashion common to mediæval beaux in
Lovelock. Redhead, and Whitehead, and Hoar or Hoare, and White and
Brown, and Rouse, and Sangwine, and Black, and Blund or Blunt, are an
innumerable force. Beard and Blackbeard are to the fore still, though
Brownbeard is gone, and probably Bluebeard never was there. The
Directory can show its Cheek, like any other fellow of forward
disposition, and Joule is not far off. And although it has no Mouth, it
possesses at least one Gumm, one Tooth, and two Tongues. “Tooth,” by the
way, has been refusing some ecclesiastic dentistry lately; but it will
need a good deal of tugging to get him out of the Directory. There is no
Gumboil, I am glad to say, at present, but he may make his appearance any
day, as he is known in other parts of England. There are eleven Notts to
be seen, and two Notmans, whose progenitors were remarkable for their
shorn heads. A man was said to have a not-head who presented this
appearance, and in the old rolls was set down as Peter le Not, or William
le Not. So although _Must_, and _Cant_, and _Shall_, and _Will_, look as
if the Directory (they are all in it) had a strong will of its own, we
must not argue the matter so far as _Nott_ is concerned.
Looking at man’s extremities the feet, we again find that it is hard to
decide whether the termination “foot” is of local or nickname origin.
The Directory has all manner of feet: a Brownfoot, a Whitefoot, a
Crowfoot, a Barefoot, a Proudfoot, a Lightfoot, and a Harefoot.
Lightfoot has just footed it all the way to the episcopal palace of
Durham. We may all, in congratulating the learned Professor, pray that
by God’s aid he may be a _light_ unto the _feet_ of his clergy, and guide
them in true and safe paths. Remembering too, his predecessor, the firm,
yet “kindly Baring,” we might concoct an epigram of our own, and say,
with many apologies to the coachman for the liberty we take,—
Come, Lightfoot, mount, the ribbons take,
When roads are downward on the brake
Set not thy _foot_ too _lightly_,
And though the reign of Baring’s o’er,
Hold _bearing-rein_ as tightly.
Or we might put another play on the name:—
_Lightfoot_ has gone to Durham’s see:
If name and mind in him agree,
Of foes he’ll have not any;
For then a lantern he will be
To _light_ the _feet_ of many.
Bishop Baring was so staunch a churchman as to put his foot on Ritualism.
Hence a young curate in his diocese said, with more wit than warrant,
that the difference betwixt him and his bishop was that he was under
Baring, while the other was over-bearing. Speaking of Lightfoot,
however, I have heard my father tell of a minister appointed many years
ago somewhere in the neighbourhood of Ashton-under-Lyne, whose name was
Light. Coming unexpectedly into a room where a prayer-meeting was being
held that a good pastor might be sent to them, he heard them singing the
two lines well known to most of my readers,—
“Sometimes a Light surprises
The Christian while he sings.”
It is said he was inclined to look upon it as an augury that he had done
rightly in accepting the post. _Foot_ we have already said is very
common, but there is only one Toe, and, as is but proper, only one Nail.
An old epigram says:
“’Twixt Footman Sam and Doctor Toe
A controversy fell,
Which should prevail against his foe
And bear away the belle;
The lady chose the footman’s heart:
Say, who can wonder? No man:
The whole prevailed above the part—
’Twas Footman _versus_ Toe, man.
Rawbones is not a pleasant name, and would be by no means suggestive of
agreeable associations to its possessor. Some will recall Praise God
Barebones, as he has been wrongly styled, for his name was Barebone, and
it was never otherwise called till about a hundred years ago. There is
all the difference in the world between Barebone and Barebones, and a
good deal of point is lost, therefore, in the elder Disraeli’s remark,
“There are some names which are very injurious to the cause in which they
are engaged; for instance, the long parliament in Cromwell’s time, called
by derision the Rump, was headed by one Barebones, a leather-seller.”
The reason of the change is simple enough. That assembly went by the
style of Barebone’s parliament, and thus people forgot that the “s” did
not belong to the name. The name is found in James’ reign as Barbon, and
stripped of the two “e’s” ceases to be ludicrous in any sense whatever.
One of the earliest ways of forming a surname of the nickname class was
to compound with the baptismal name an adjective of size, age,
relationship, or condition. We are all familiar with such a name as
Little-john, which may well stand as a typical illustration, for I see in
my London Directory nine instances occur. The father of the original
bearer was doubtless John, and the son being baptized by the same
agnomen, the neighbours would readily get into the way of styling him
Little John. The grandson would accept this as his surname, and thus the
sobriquet would become a permanency. These compounds of John are not
uncommon, for that was the commonest baptismal name in those days, save
William. Thus we have Mickle-john, _i.e._ big John; Brown-john;
Hob-john, _i.e._ clownish John; and Young-john, an instance of which I
saw in Kidderminster not long ago. By means of French importation, or
through our Norman forefathers, we have also Pru-jean, Gros-jean, and
Petit-jean. Proper-john, though not in the London Directory, is very
common in some parts of the country, and implied that the original bearer
was a well-formed, shapely youth. This old use of the term is preserved
in our Authorized Version, where St. Paul is made to speak of Moses as “a
proper child.” Our Properjohns need not be ashamed of their designation.
Speaking of Youngjohn, I may state that in one of our Yorkshire local
directories may be seen _John Berry_, and immediately below _Young John
Berry_. Doubtless the son was baptized “Young John,” to distinguish him
from his father; and thus an old custom was but restored in a more formal
manner at the font. As Young John Berry has now grown to man’s estate,
as is proved by the fact that he occupies a place of his own in the
aforementioned directory, we may, perhaps, some day see in a future issue
of that same public register, “_Still Younger John Berry_” as the title
of the representative of the third generation! The most interesting name
in its associations, however, is that of Bon-jean or Bon-john, _i.e._
Good John, corrupted into Bunyan. So early as the year 1310 there dwelt
in London a householder of the name of Jon Bonjon. My readers will deem
it, I doubt not, a happy coincidence that when we speak of the author of
the immortal “Pilgrim’s Progress” as “Good John Bunyan,” we are simply
saying twice over “Good John”: once in English, and once in French.
Probably the ancestor of the dreamer of Bedford was a Norman tradesman,
who had come over to London to better himself.
Speaking of these Norman-French names ending in Jean, such as Gros-Jean,
Petit-Jean, or Bon-Jean, we are reminded that this mode of forming
surnames was much more common in France than in England. A single glance
at the Paris Directory will amply demonstrate this. We find Grand-jean
(Big-John), Grand-perret and Grand-pierre (Big-Peter), Grand-collet
(Big-Nicholas), and Grand-Guillot (Big-William). Of an opposite
character we light upon Petit-collin (Little Nicholas), Petit-guillaume
(Little-William), Petit-perrin and Petit-pierre (Little-Peter), and
Petit-jeannin, corresponding to our English Little-john already alluded
to. These instances, which might be amplified to any extent, will
suffice to prove that nicknames of this class are far more prevalent with
our French neighbours than ourselves.
But while such qualificatory terms as “good,” “long,” “young,” and
“proper,” were freely applied to baptismal names, they were not limited
to such. Long-skinner used to exist as a surname, also Young-smith and
Good-groom. One of our most aristocratic names is Beau-clerk; and its
opposite, Mau-clerk, once familiar enough to our ears, still exists in
the corrupted form of Manclerk. Talking, however, of ears, the name that
sounds most curious upon the modern tympanum is that of Good-Knave. This
is no corruption, and meant exactly what it seems to mean—that the
original bearer was a good honest knave! But then, as many of my readers
are aware, there was a time when a knave was nothing more than a servant
or page. Shakespear speaks of one who is but
“Fortune’s knave,
A minister of her will.”
Young-husband, of which there are four representatives in our London
Directory, is a very familiar instance of this class, although _husband_
had no doubt a much wider significance in the day that the surname arose.
Goodfellow is also well known; and, above all, one of our American
cousins has made Longfellow famous to all time. If you come to analyse
the name of the author of “Evangeline,” it has not a very attractive
origin. The earliest instances I can find are in our Yorkshire records,
and there it is set down Long-fellay. Even now in Lancashire and
Yorkshire a fellow is always a “felley.” I wonder if Henry Longfellow
ever heard of Thomas Longfellow, landlord of the Golden Lion Inn at
Brecon, who must have made a somewhat _long_ face when he saw the
following lines inscribed upon a panel of his coffee-room:—
“Tom Longfellow’s name is most justly his due:
Long his neck, long his bill, which is _very_ long, too;
Long the time ere your horse to the stable is led;
Long before he’s rubbed down, and much longer till fed;
Long indeed may you sit in a comfortless room
Till from kitchen long dirty your dinner shall come;
Long the oft-told tale that your host will relate;
Long his face while complaining how long people eat;
Long may Longfellow long ere he see me again:
Long ’twill be ere I long for Tom Longfellow’s Inn.”
The well-known publishers, Messrs. Longman, represent, of course, but
another form of the same name. Indeed, as will be seen at a glance, this
class could be extended indefinitely; so indefinitely that, were I to set
all the instances down one by one, I should have to write a big book
instead of a small one. This is exactly what the Editor does not desire;
for which reason—not to hint that the reader might be weary—I withhold my
hand: and indeed it is time.
* * * * *
[Picture: Graphic of Finis]
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THE WAY HOME;
OR,
THE GOSPEL IN THE PARABLE:
An Earthly Story with a Heavenly Meaning.
BY THE
REV. CHARLES BULLOCK, B.D.,
FORMERLY RECTOR OF ST. NICHOLAS’, WORCESTER, EDITOR OF “THE FIRESIDE,”
“HOME WORDS,” AND “HAND AND HEART,”
_With Illustrations Designed by S. C. Pennefather_:
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The contrast between the cost of Books and Magazines is very startling.
For example, one Serial Tale in “THE FIRESIDE,” published separately as a
volume, _sells for_ 5_s._; and if the other contents were also published
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FOOTNOTES
{12} Legge or Leg is Leigh, a meadow, and therefore _local_. John de
Leg is found in the _Hundred Rolls_.
{25} The pedigree is shown in graphical format in the book. In text it
is: Starting at RICHARD OF COLTON there are three descendents: Richard
the Little, William atte Pound and Henry Whitehead. From William atte
Pound there are two descendents: Bartholomew the Page and John
Williamson. From Bartholomew the Page is descended Richard the Baker.
From Henry Whitehead is descended Adam Hawkins and from him James Bentham
and Alice Adams.—DP.
{26} Again, the pedigree is shown in the book in graphical format. In
text it starts at WILLIAM BELWARD OF MALPAS with descendents David le
Clerke and Richard de Belward. From David le Clerke are descended
William de Malpas, Philip Gough and David Golborne. From Richard de
Belward are descended Thomas de Cotgrave, William de Overton and Richard
Little. From Richard Little is descended John Richardson.—DP.
{29} I say there are 250 Aliens in London. But the Directory only gives
the name of the head of the family. Hence in the aggregate there may be
2,000 Aliens dwelling in the metropolis.
{43} Dearn means secluded. Chaucer speaks of “derne love,” _i.e._
hidden, secret love.
{63} Since this appeared in _The Fireside_, I became vicar of a church
on the borders of Cumberland. I find that there is an old hall with a
celebrated “dobby” in it, within a few stones cast of my vicarage! It
(_i.e._ the ghost) is always called the “dobby” here.
{66} After the appearance of this chapter as an article in _The
Fireside_, I received several letters from the counties of Cambridge,
Stafford, and Devon, testifying to the existence of the surname “Robinet”
in several secluded villages.
{86} A servant of King Henry III. was called by the simple and only name
of “Pentecostes” (Inquis., 13 Edit., No. 13).
{107} A curious instance in point will be found in the marginal reading
of Malachi ii. 12, where “master, and scholar,” in the text, is
marginally translated, “him that waketh, and him that answereth.” Now,
we know the corresponding duties of master and scholar. The master asks
his question, and then _watches_ for the reply. “Him that watcheth, and
him that replieth,” would be understood by all readers. “Him that
waketh, and him that answereth,” will probably seem unmeaning to nineteen
out of twenty average students.
{120} In this last record there is also a “Thomas le Sober.”
{122} I must not let this statement pass without saying that the
termination “ster” is not admitted to be feminine by all philologists; in
fact, it is the subject of much contention. It will be quite sufficient
for my purpose simply to draw attention to the existence of this twofold
desinence in “er” and “ster,” because it occurs more frequently in the
directory than the dictionary. I have had the opportunity of proving
this in “English Surnames” (2nd edition, p. 380 and elsewhere), so I will
only add that very often where the dictionary has dropped one form the
directory has preserved it, and _vice versâ_. For instance, there are
five Treachers and two Trickers in the London Directory. We do not now
speak of a tricker but a “trickster.” Of course the meaning of a
“treacher” or “tricker” has become forgotten or confused, otherwise our
friends bearing that name would long ago have shuffled it off. Webster
still has the word, but he adds that it is an obsoletism. We only talk
of a beggar now, but “Joan Beggister” occurs in an old roll. It is
curious to note how the weaving and dyeing of cloth have left the double
forms. We only speak of a dyer now, but “Dyer” and “Dyster” figure in
the London Directory. On the other hand, the dictionary has both
“whiter” and “whitster,” and “thrower” and “throwster,” the directory
only “Whiter” and “Thrower.” Again, the directory alone contains
“Blaxter” (bleachster), the dictionary alone _bleacher_. A _litter_ of
cloth (_i.e._ dyer), or a _kemper_ of wool seems never to have existed,
for only “Lister” is a surname—once written “Litster”—and “Kempster.” I
have already mentioned Webber and Webster. We should think it odd to
hear people talk of a “_bellringster_,” or a “_breadmongster_,” or a
“_washster_,” but so they did some generations ago. “Spinner” has never
been a surname, nor “spinster,” but the latter had no chance on account
of the secondary sense that so quickly attached to it. I cannot end this
note without once more drawing the attention of philologists to the
advantages of using the _directory_ as a complement to the _dictionary_.
{126} We can readily understand why “Spooner” should be so common a
name, when we reflect that not only were there no forks in use, but our
forefathers were particularly fond of sauces and thick soups. The spoon
was much more used than the knife at dinner. Our “Pottingers” are relics
of the old potager, or pottinger, who made pottage—that is, soup well
thickened with vegetables. _Porridge_ is but a corruption of pottage.
In all this the _spoon_ played an important part. I see four Pottingers
in the Directory.
{138} The same kind of wit was exercised on Camden and his book called
“Remains,” and Walker, of Dictionary reputation. It was suggested that
the epitaph of the one should be “Camden’s Remains,” and of the other
“Walker’s Particles.”
{141} Another pet form of Cuthbert was “Crud,” or “Crowd,” and hence
about Kendal and the Furness district of North Lancashire a familiar
surname is Crewdson, and Croudson. It is a proof of the peculiar
tenacity with which some names cling to the place of their origin, that
there is no instance of this surname in the London Directory.
{144a} The mother of Thomas Moore, the poet, bore the name of Anastasia
Codd. I never see this conjunction of Christian name and surname without
thinking of a very little man with a very big hat on.
{144b} A much prettier selection of names, after a triple birth, is
recorded by Mr. Lower in his “English Surnames,” where the three
Christian graces of “Faith,” “Hope,” and “Charity,” were chosen. This is
a _bonâ-fide_ instance: and I may observe here that I have among my
manuscript copies of curious registrations, met with by myself, at least
a dozen instances where either Faith, or Hope, or Charity have been
imposed upon infants at baptism.
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