Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

treme points, but at times it puts one in sober mood to think all the touches of a past time are to fade away, and these be in their stead. How different the tale nomenclature tells us of former rusticity and simpler tastes.

The early husbandman required but little decorative refinement for his homestead. To keep out the cold blast and the driving rain, to have a niche by the fireside comfortable and warm, this was all he asked or wished for. His roof was all but invariably composed of thack or thatch, and every village had its 'thatcher.' Busy indeed would he be as the late autumndrew nigh, and stack and stead must be shielded from the keen and chilling winter. The Hundred Roll forms of the surname are 'Joan le Thaccher' and 'Thomas le Thechare;' the Parliamentary Writs 'John le Thacher;' while the more modern directory furnishes uswith such changes rung upon the same as 'Thatcher,' 'Thacker'' (still a common provincialism for the occupation), and 'Thackery,' or 'Thackeray,' or 'Thackwray.' 2 These latter are of course but akin to the old John le Fermery,' or'Richard le Vicary,' the termination added being the result of popular whim or caprice.

1 'Thacker' represented the northern pronunciation, 'Thatcher' the south. Compare ' kirk' and ' church,' ' poke' and 'pouch,"dike' and 'ditch,' or the surnames 'Fisk' and 'Fish.' A 'Nathaniel Thackman' is set down in the index to Slate Papers (Domestic) for 1635.

2 A 'John Thaxter' is met with in a college register for 1567 (Hist. C. C. Coll. Cam.), and far earlier than this, in the Parliamentary Writs, we light upon a 'Thomas Thackstere.' This is one more instance of the feminine termination. That the word itself was in familiar use is proved by the fact that in the ordinance arranging the Norwich Trades Procession we find among others the 'Thaxteres' marching in company with the 'Rederes.' (Hist. Norfolk, vol. iii.) As a surname the term still survives.

SURNAMES OF OCCUPATION (COUNTRY).

Our 'Readers ' had less to do with book lore than we might have supposed, being but descendants of the mediaeval 'William le Redere,'1 another term for the same kind of labour. The old 'Hellier,' or 'Helier,' carries us back to a once well-known root. To ' hill,' or

hele,' was to cover, and a ' hilyer' was a roofer.2Sir John Maundville says with regard to the Tartars, 'the helynge of their houses, and . . . the dores ben alle of woode;' and John of Trevisa speaks of the English ' whyt cley and red' as useful ' for to make crokkes and other vessels, and barned tyyl to hele with houses and churches.' Gower, too, uses the word prettily, but perfectly naturally, when hesays

She took up turves (turfs) of the lond,

Withouten help of mannes hond,

All heled with the grene grass.'

Amongst other of the many forms that still survive surnominally we have 'Hillyer,' 'Hillier,' 'Hellier,'

1 Robertus Brown, redere,' Guild of St. George, Norwich.

2 'Also, that no tylers called hillyers of the cite compelle, ne charge ne make no tyler straunger to serve at his rule and assignment, etc.' — The Ordinances of Worcester, English Guilds, 398.

3 According to Walsingham, Wat the rebel was 'Walterus helier, vel tyler.'The word is prettily used in an old Saxon Psalter, where, in the stead of our present 'He is a buckler to all those that trust in Him,' we read that a

'Forhiler is He

Of all that in Him hoping be.'

The following quotations from Wicklyffe's New Testament will prove how familiar was the term in his day: ' And lo a greet stiryng was made in the see so that the schip was hilid with wavis' (Matt. viii. 24); 'For I hungride and ye gaven me to ete, I thirstide and ye gaven me to drynke, I was herbarweles and ye herboriden me, naked and ye hiliden me' (Matt. xxv. 35); 'No man lightnith a lanteme, and hilith it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed' (Luke viii. 16).