I put the following forward for
discussion :-
-
There is the Parish of Spytty in Denbigshire, Wales, maybe this is where
the first Essex Spitty came from? When surnames first started being
used, the place names of where the person lived or was born was
commonly adopted as the surname e.g. John of Cambridge became John
Cambridge. In the same way occupation names became surnames e.g.
William the baker became William Baker.
In Burke's Landed Gentry Vol's 6 & 8, the entry for Thomas Jenner
Spitty of Billericay (1812-1898) has the following notation :-
"Lineage - The family tradition is that this family originally came
from Wales into Essex."
- SPITTY / SPITTLE - It is possible
that Spitty came about as a corruption of Spittle, or visa versa.
There is an early family of SPITTLE in High Rooding, Essex (Roding /
Roothing) - (see
will of John Spittle). His son was named Richard, the favoured Spitty first name of the 17thC.
It is possible that he was a Spitty and Spittle was an error in the
will, or in the phase when the name was changing.
There was also a messuage in High Rooding called Spitties
(ERO doc D/DQh/42), evidence that John Spittle of High Rooding was quite probably
a Spitty or Spittie.
-
It is possible that the Spittle name was a mis-transcription of
Spittie with the 'i' seen as an 'l', or the name was mis-heard, by
the solicitor/clerk writing up the will or document. The phonetic spelling in
old documents is quite amusing at times
-
This misunderstanding / mis-scribing of the Spittle for
Spitty/Spittie can be seen within the Essex RO documents D/DU
18/48 & Q/SR247/97 where one Rich. Spittle of South Fambridge is named.
However it is well documented in numerous other documents that the
South Fambridge resident at that time was Richard
Spitty/Spittie. And the second document quotes a Spittie and a
Spittle in the same item.
-
The various attempts at writing the name by various scribes in
centuries past can be seen in the following list of variations found
:-
SPITTY, SPITTEY, SPITTIE, SPITTYE, SPYTTYE, SPYTTIE, SPYTE, SPTTYE,
SPITE, SPETTYLL, SPITTLE, SPITTEL
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