Bromhead

This curious surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name from Broomhead, an estate south of Penistone in the West Riding of Yorkshire, so called from the Olde English pre 7th Century "brom", broom, gorse, and "heafod", head(land); hence, "broom-covered head(land)". Locational surnames, such as this, were originally given to local landowners, and the lord of the manor, and especially as a means of identification to those who left their birthplace to settle elsewhere. The surname first appears on record towards the end of the 13th Century (see below), and in 1440, one John Bromehed was noted in Sheffield Manorial Records, Yorkshire. The name is now variously spelt: Broomhead, Bromehe(a)d, Bromhead, Bromet, Brumhead and Brummitt, and is widely recorded in 16th Century Yorkshire Church Registers. On April 18th 1559, John, son of Thomas Bromehed, was christened at Bradfield, and on April 18th 1567, Nycholas Broomhead was a christening witness at Bradfield, while on July 23rd 1588, the marriage of Anna Bromehead to Henry Sympson took place at Leeds. Some bearers of the name Bromet and Brommet may alternatively be of French Huguenot extraction, as the following entry illustrates: Anne, daughter of Pierre Bromet and Anne Bequel, was christened at Glasshouse Street and Leicester Fields French Huguenot Church, London, on January 11th 1692. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Henry de Bromeheuede, which was dated 1290, in "A Descriptive Catalogue of Sheffield Manorial Records", Yorkshire, during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. 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.