Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

And maister Timothie the woollen-draper;

And maister Salamon the leather-scraper;

And maister Frank the goldsmith at the Rose,

And maister Philip with the fiery nose;

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 Dick the vintner at the Cow;

And Harry haberdasher at the Horne;

And Oliver the dyer at the Thorne;

And Bernard, barber-surgeon at the Fiddle;

And Moses, merchant-tailor at the Needle.'

More than three hundred years previous to this we find such names figuring in our registers as 'John de la Rose,' 'John atte Belle,' 'Roger Horne,' and 'Nicholas Sparewe,' while 'Cow ' is met by its Nor-man equivalent in the instance of 'Richard de la Vache.' Of the rest, too, contained in the above lines, all are found in our existing nomenclature with the exception of 'Fryingpan.' Still more recently, the 'British Apollo' contained the following:

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.'

A word or two about these double signs before we pass on, as I cannot but think much ingenious

1 Vide Lower's Surnames.

LOCAL SURNAMES.

nonsense has been written thereon. There can be no difficulty in accounting for these strange combinations, some of which still exist. A partnership in business would be readily understood by the conjoining of two hitherto separate signs. An apprentice who, on the death of his master, had succeeded to his business, would gladly retain the previous well-established badge, and simply show the change of hands by adding thereto his own. I cannot but think that such ingenious derivations as 'God encompasseth us' for the 'Goat and Compasses,' or the 'Satyr and Bacchanals' for the 'Devil and Bag-o'-nails,' or the Boulogne Mouth' for the ' Bull and Mouth,' are altogether unnecessary. A clever and imaginative mind could soon produce similar happy plays upon the conjunctions contained in the above lines, and yet the originations I have suggested for them all I think my readers will admit to be most natural. There is no more peculiarity about these than about the ordinary combinations of names we are accustomed to see in the streets every day of our lives, denoting partnership. Thus the only difference is that what we now read as 'Smith and Wright,' in an age when reading was less universal was, say, 'Magpieand Crown.' Partnerships, or business transactions, often bring peculiar conjunctions of names. So early as 1284, I find a 'Nicholas Bacun' acknowledging a bond to a certain 'Hugh Motun,' i.e. Mutton. (Riley's London,' p. 23.) I have myself come across such combinations as 'Shepherd and Calvert ' — i.e. 'Calve-herd,' or 'Sparrow and Nightingale,'or 'Latimer and Ridley.' During the early portion of my residence at Oxford the two Bible-clerkships connected with my