As prefaces are very little read, I will make this as brief as possible. It is strange how little has been written upon the sources and significations of our English surnames. Of books of Peerage, of Baronetage, and of Landed Gentry, thanks to Sir Bernard Burke, Mr. Walford, and others, we are not without a sufficiency; but of books purporting to treat of the ordinary surnames that greet our eye as we scan our shop-fronts, or look down a list of contributions, or glance over the ‘hatches, matches, and despatches’ of our newspapers—of these there are but few. Indeed, putting aside Mr. Lower’s able and laborious researches, we may say none. Tracts, pamphlets, short treatises, articles in magazines, have at various times appeared, but they have been necessarily confined and limited in their treatment of the subject.^[1] And yet what can be more natural than that we should desire to know something relating to the origin of our surname, when it arose, who first got it, and how? Of the feebleness of my own attempt to solve all this I am conscious that I need not to be reminded. Still, I think the ordinary reader will find in a perusal of this book some slight increase of information, and if not this, that he has whiled away, not unpleasantly, some of his less busy hours.

During the last seven years I have devoted the whole of my spare time to the preparation of a ‘Dictionary of English Surnames.’ But about two years ago it struck me that perhaps a smaller work dealing with the subject in a less formal and more familiar style might not be unacceptable to many, as a kind of rudimentary treatise. In the course of my labours I have come under obligations to several writers and several Societies. To long-departed men, whose works do follow after them, I must give a passing allusion. Camden was the first to draw attention to this subject, and though he wrote little, and that little not of the most correct kind, still he has afforded the groundwork for all future students. Verstegan, who came next with his ‘Restitution of Decayed Intelligence,’ wrote quaintly, amusingly and incorrectly; and, with respect to surnames, his definitions rather teach what they do not than what they do mean. Passing over several archÆological papers, and with a wide gap in regard to time, we come to Mr. Lower’s studies. He was the first to give a real compendium of English nomenclature. Of his earlier efforts I will say nothing, for the ‘Patronymica Britannica’ is that upon which his fame must rest. The fault of that work is that the author has confined his researches all but entirely to the Hundred Rolls. These Rolls are undoubtedly the best for such reference; but there are many others, as my index will show, which not merely contain a large mass of examples not to be met with there, but which, by varieties of spelling in the case of such names as they share in common with the other, afford comparisons the use of which would have made him certain where he has only guessed, and would have enabled him also to avoid many false conclusions. This I would say with all respect, as one who has benefited very considerably by Mr. Lower’s labours. Others I must thank more briefly, though none the less heartily. To Mr. Halliwell I am under deep obligation, for to his ‘Dictionary of Archaisms’ I have gone freely by way of quotation. To Mr. Way’s notes to his valuable edition of the ‘Promptorium Parvulorum’ I am also indebted for much interesting information regarding mediÆval life and its surroundings. Miss Yonge’s ‘History of Christian Names’ contains a large store of help to students of this kind of lore, and of this I have availed myself in several instances. In conclusion, I have to acknowledge much valuable aid received from the publications of the Surtees Society, the Early English Text Society, the Camden Society, and the Chetham Society. It is in the rooms belonging to the latter that I have had the opportunity of consulting most of the records and archives, a list of which prefaces my index, as well as other books of a more incidentally helpful character, and I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without tendering my hearty thanks to Thomas Jones, Esq., B.A., F.S.A., for his courtesy in permitting me access to all parts of the library, and to Mr. Richard Hanby, the under-librarian, for his constant attention and readiness to supply me with whatever books I required.

Manchester:

December 1873.