April , Not such a cruel month.

 

A Report  on the April Meeting of Resolven History Society

T.S. Elliot in “The Wasteland”, remarked perceptively that “ April  was the cruellest month”, and it was with trepidation that the Committee called an end to their self-imposed  Covid -19  inspired hiatus in January, in order to save what was left of the usual lecture season. Luckily, John Richards of Skewen who has spoken to the Society on several occasions , gave an inspired talk on the derivation of surnames which reminded the small audience why the study of history in all its guises is so important.

Mr Richards began his talk by stating that having second names would have been important from the very beginning in order to differentiate between individuals within a tribe. In essence sur names fell into four groups , which are as true today as then.

The first group concerned patronyms, literally referring to the name of the father. The Anglo Saxons would add “son” to a name as in Harold Godwinson of Battle of Hastings fame. The Scandinavians  added “sen “ (or “dottir” for daughter Ed. ), the Irish added “O’” as in O’Neil, the Scots Mac and the Welsh “ap” which is readily seen in the modern surnames Price, Prosser or Protheroe for example. The Norman “fitz” was used sometimes to denote illegitimacy and the silent apostrophe could well account for Welsh surnames such as Williams, Jones and Evans. Sometimes this did not refer to the father but to the owner or landlord, and explains why people from the West Indies have surnames referring back to the slave trade (Ed).

The second group refers to a trade or occupation. A string of names could follow from production to a commercial activity. A Herdman, would lead to Farmer, Butcher , Horner, Skinner, Tanner, Leatherhead, Lorimer etc. People were tied to the land and the houses gave rise to another set of surnames  Thatcher, Carpenter , Plumber,  Black (smith), Wright etc.

The third group refers to location or the derivation of a family. English, Welsh/Walsh and Ireland are all common surnames, as are names such as David Essex and George Washington. Forests trees were commonly applied to surnames such as Arden , Dean , Woodley , Bush and Crabtree. The names Street and Way refer to ancient roads and river featureds  such as Beck , Brook , Burn , Widlake and Ford are also fond widely.

The last group referred to nick names. Nick refer or the Anglo Saxon “eke”, which denotes  also or added. They would be needed in much the same way as second names are added to differentiate between people with the same name. Family characteristics such as Bull, Lamb or Fox or physical attributes such as  Armstrong ,Whitehead , Hand,  Foot  or Head. Hair colour gives us names such as Grey, Brown, Blonde, Russell, Blake and Morris (from Moorish which covered anyone with a dark complexion).

The meeting concluded with a wide ranging discussion on local names and the profuse use of nick names in Resolven some of them extremely comical.

Trefor Jones, thanked Mr Richards for a marvellous talk.

The Society will conclude the meetings for this year with a reading of former Resolven resident Alun Morgan’s new History of Resolven. The book is a revelation and I would appeal to anyone with an interest in their community to attend on the second Monday of May in the Church Hall at 7:00.