Newsletter of the Shard*low Study Group

by Gerry Langford

November 2008

— Download this page in Adobe Acrobat format

Comment
This will be the last Newsletter of 2008 so may I wish you all a Happy Christmas and a Peaceful New Year.

John and I have recently compared our Mailing lists which revealed one or two which were out of date. If for any reason you change your email address please let myself or John know.

It has been suggested that I am too concerned with finding if the two main forms of the name, Shardelow and Shardlow, originated from the same person. I am convinced that other variations are due to there not being a standard spelling at that time or simply a mistake. I would appreciate it if you would let me know if you feel it is important to you? A simple one line “Very important” or “Not Important” addressed to Glangford@compuserve.com with the subject line Origin Survey would do although I would be very interested in your reasons if you wish to give them.

Contacts
Sylvia Crooks (not a Shard*low connection) writing from Canada had read in “Shards” about Edward George Shardelow, the soldier commemorated by the naming of Mount Shardelow.

Sylvia sent me some interesting notes she had made when writing her book “Homefront & Battlefront: Nelson BC in World War II” which gives a graphic account of the battle in which Edward was killed. It is too long to repeat here but Sylvia has given me permission to use some of her notes on Edward. At first he worked for CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) and then went into business for himself setting up the Nelson Auto camp and Gas Station. He was a member of the Anglican Church and a keen fisherman.

Early Shardelow Marriages
I have mentioned before the research done by Gordon Keys, although he lived on Canada he spent a lot of time in England searching in Record Offices and Libraries and shortly before he died some years ago he passed all his notes to me. I have been checking these against official records and recording the source, one has been particularly difficult to check and turns out to be correspondence to a Magazine called “The East Anglian” regarding the Angier family. This mentions two marriages to Shardelow’s only one of which has a date, unfortunately events associated with one of these do not agree with actual events which are well documented so I am not including them in my records.

This caused me to look at my early records of the name and a point which has puzzled me for a long time when the name seemed to be handed down through the female line. This case rests on two documents, one in the Calendar of Fines in 1231 refers to Idonea, daughter of William son of Nigel de Shardelawe renting land. The other is from the Huntington Library. San Marino regarding the sale of land by Idonea de Schardelow and her son Master Robert de Schardelow. I can not do better than quote from he book “Medieval Genealogy” by Paul Chambers which reads: “The practice of a woman taking her husbands surname was very flexible up until the mid-fourteenth century. Prior to this time a married woman might use her own name or, if she was married more than once, retain the surname of a previous husband”

Even this does not settle the question who was Roberts father? It seems certain Idonea was a Shardelow so was she using that or had she married another Shardelow? (Very unlikely because the marriage of even very distant cousins was frowned on by the Church.)

Apprenticeships
Details of several boys entering Apprenticeships have come to hand all of which were for a terms of seven years. Two of these have unusual spelling of the name showing that this was still not formalised in 1750
     George Shardlo to Geo: Redwood, Taylor May 1753
     Joseph Shurdlow to Henry Marshall Framework knitter Nov 1753
     Jn. Croome to Tho. Shardelow Worsted Weaver May 1712
     Tho. Shardelow to Tho. Marsh of Eye. Suffolk. June 1716
     Jn. Shardelow to Tho. Rouse of Leyston, Suffolk Apl. 1715
     Will. Blunt to Edw. Shardelow of Surlingham, Norf: Aug 1753
The first of these is known to refer to the large family in the village of Shardlow who always used the normal spelling.

Merchant Taylors School
I have a list headed “A Register of Scholars admitted from AD1567 to 1874“, it is dated10 March 1696-7 but only the last three of eight names have a date against them. Only one (undated) is of interest to us, Thomas Shadloe but without any more information I am unable to connect him with a family.

StopPress
Just before finishing this I received an Email from Don Shardlow in America, he is descended from the John C. Shardlow reported in SHARDS #40 (J.C. Shardlow’s native.) We are exchanging records and I am hoping this will enable me to tie this in with earlier Shardlow’s.