Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

'Hellyer,' and the somewhat unpleasant 'Helman' and 'Hellman: Earlier instances may be found in the Hundred Rolls in such entries as 'Robert le Heliere' or 'Will. Heleman.' Our 'Tylers' are well and quaintly represented in the early rolls. One medieval spelling of this good old-fashioned name is Tyghelere' (Adam le Tyghelere, P.W.), while such forms as ' le Tuglur,' 'le Tuler,' or ' le Tewler,'as representatives of the Norman-French vocabulary, meet us on every hand. Whether any of their descendants have had the courage to reproduce any of these renderings I cannot say. I do not find any in our directories. Our 'Smiths' have not been quite so qualmish. With the tylers we may fitly introduce our ' Shinglers,' they who used the stout oaken wood in the place of burnt clay. Churches were oftentimes so covered. Mr. Halliwell quotes the following some-what sarcastic couplet:

Flouren cakes beth the schingles alle

Of cherche, cloister, boure, and halle.

Piers Plowman, too, speaks similarly of Noah's Ark as the 'shyngled ship.' 1 All these names have, occupatively speaking, now become obsolete, or nearly so; our 'Slaters,' or 'Sclaters,' or 'Slatters,' having usurped the entire position they were formerly content to sharewith their humbler brethren?

1 Among other items of an entry in the Issues of the Exchequer we find for ' putting the shingles on the king's kitchen, for the aforesaid week, 17s. 4d.' (43 Hen. HI.)

2 We find all these various forms of the same occupation mentioned in a statute of Elizabeth relating to the apprenticeship of children. In it are included 'Lymeburner, Brickmaker, Bricklayer, Tyler, Slater, Healyer, Tilemaker . . . Thatcher or Shingler.' (5 Eliz. c. 4, 23. )

SURNAMES OF OCCUPATION (COUNTRY).

In the majority of the above names we shall find the Saxon to be in all but whole possession of the field. The fact is, the roof and its appurtenances were little regarded for a long period by our early architects, if we may give such a grand term to those who set up the ordinary homestead of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. There were no chimneys even in the residences of the rich and noble. A hole in the roof, or the window, or the door, one of these, whether in the homes of the peer or the peasant, was the outlet for all obnoxious vapours. With the Nor-mans, however, came a great increase of refinement in the masonry and wooden framework of which our houses are composed. Such names as 'Adam le Quarreur,' or 'Hugh le Quareur,' 'Walter le Marbiler,' or 'Geoffrey le Merberer,' 'Gotte le Mazoun,' or 'Walter le Masun,' or ' Osbert le Machun ' represent a cultivation of which the earlier settled race, if they knew something, did not avail themselves in their merely domestic architecture. Two of these occupations are referred to by 'Cocke Lorelle,' when he speaks of

Masones, malemakers, and merbeler.'

'Henry le Wallere,' whose sobriquet was ennobled later on by one of our poets, is the only entry I can set by these as belonging to the Saxon tongue.' It is the same with the Norman 'Amice le Charpenter' and 'Alan le Joygnour.' While the former framed

1 Hugh Marbeler was sheriff of London in 1424.

2 Another Saxon name, that of ' john le Sclabbere,"is met with in the Parliamentary Writs. It is, however, but an isolated instance, and I do not suppose there was any particular craft in masonry that went by that title.