Hardwidge

This interesting name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational surname from any one of the numerous places called "Hardwick" in, for example, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Worcestershire and Yorkshire. The placenames are variously recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, as "Harduich", "Hardwic", "Hierduic" and "Hardewich", and all share the same meaning and derivation, which is from the Old English pre 7th Century, "Leorde", meaning "herd, flock", with "wic" meaning an outlying farm or settlement dependent on a larger village. The modern surname can be found as "Hardwick(e)", "Hardwich", and "Hardwidge". On July 16th 1542, Robert Hardwick married Margaret Grene, at St. Leonards Eastcheap, Margerye Hardwick was christened on October 6th 1549, at St. Michael, Cornhill, and Benjamin Hardwick was christened on February 7th 1552, at the same place. One, Francis Hardwick was an early settler in the New World, being recorded as a landowner in the parish of St. Michaels, Barbados, in 1680. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Anketill de Herdewic, witness, which was dated 1221, in the Warwickshire Assize Rolls, during the reign of King Henry 111, known as "The Frenchman", 1216 - 1272. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.