The origin of the West Yorkshire surname Lindley

The aim of this study is not so much to present genealogical research, but to examine the infrequent name Lindley and the opportunity provided by this “manageable” (in terms of numbers) family name. It is a distinctive name with the likelihood of having a single origin

Summary

The first Anglian settlement in the Huddersfield district, West Yorkshire, was as early as the 7th Century. Both Old Lindley and Lindley are Anglian place-names and it is assumed they were named and occupied about this time. Historian J. Crabtree of Halifax, writing in 1836, referred to these settlements as Old Lindley and New Lindley, implying an order of settlement. Both settlements are located on the divide separating the Colne and Calder Valleys. It is significant that the place-names Old Lindley and Lindley were recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. It is an indication of their antiquity. Record keeping prior to the Domesday Book (1086) was virtually non-existent. The earliest known reference to the surname Lindley is Falcasius of Lindley in 1220. The village Lindley in the Washburn Valley, on the West and North Yorkshire border, was occupied and named after 1086.

Old English surnames prior to c.1300-1400s were non-hereditary. They were often derived from a geographic location, a place where one lived or land that one owned, e.g. Thomas de Lyndeley lived in Huddersfield (Lindley) village in 1379. It was not until c.1300-1400s that there was a stabilisation of surnames, and by the end of this period inherited surnames were typical in most Western European cultures. The geographic place-name Lindley (as with many other Yorkshire names) became an inherited surname. Prior to the stabilisation of surnames c.1300-1400 and a subsequent simplification of spelling of Old English surnames, there were many variants of the name Lindley, e.g. Lynneslay, Lyndeley, Lyndelay, Lyynley, Lynley and Lynlay. A survey of Parish Records, which were maintained by Parish Churches across Britain from the 1500s, indicates the prevalence of three variants, viz. Lindley, Linley and Lynley.

The Lindley family between the 7th Century and c.1550 originated and remained in the villages of Rastrick, Stainland, Old Lindley, Lindley, Quarmby, Holmfirth and Hepworth, on the eastern fall of the Pennines, and located in the adjoining parishes of Halifax, Huddersfield, Almondbury, Kirkheaton and Kirkburton. There was minor movement into the Washburn Valley in the Wharfedale district around 1240 and to Rothwell. This tendency for families to remain resident at the locality or very close by to the locality from which their surname derived is typical of elsewhere in West Yorkshire. During the years c.1550-1699 there was an expansion of the name away from the Huddersfield district in multiple directions. Some family moved to the large valleys to the north and northeast of Huddersfield (Wharfe, Ouse and Aire), to villages at Lindley, near Otley, Harewood, Cawood and Snaith. Others moved in a southeast direction from the origination villages of Rastrick, Stainland, Old Lindley, Lindley, Quarmby, Holmfirth and Hepworth, to an area centred on Wakefield, Sandal Magna, Darfield, Darton, Silkstone, Penistone and Barnsley. Others moved as far as Sheffield, Rotherham and Maltby, up to 30 miles to the southeast. The latter half of the 18th Century and early 19th Century saw quickened growth of industries and expansion of the Lindley name into the growing industrial towns of West and South Yorkshire (Leeds, Bradford, Ecclesfield, Wakefield, York, Sheffield, Rotherham, Pontefract and Doncaster). Others moved outside of West and South Yorkshire, e.g. Nottinghamshire, Manchester, Norfolk and Scarborough.

The book is 63 pages with 53 colour and b/w photos and maps and 3 tables.

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