Hedditch

Recorded in several forms including Headech, Hedech, Heditch, Hedditch, and possibly even Headacre, this is an English surname, but of pre 7th century Anglo-Saxon origins. The derivation is from the early personal name "Haduric" meaning "battle-rule", one of a wide group of similar compound names first introduced into Britain by the Anglo-Saxon invaders in the years after the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century. Five centuries later and after the Norman-French Invasion of 1066, these names themsleves became politically incorrect, and the majority were either wholly lost or to some extent 'Frenchified'. However this is one of the true survivors. Early examples of the surname recordings taken from surviving church registers of the post medieval and Elizabethan period include: Thomas Headeach who was christened at St Anns, Blackfriars, in the city of London, on May 10th 1591, and Judith Heddich who married Peter Verstelle, a French Huguenot refugee, at the church known as St. Katherine's by the Tower (of London), on May 30th 1680. 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.