Clempton

Recorded as Clampton and Clempton, this is an English surname. It is locational, although there does not appear to be any such place name recorded either in the modern gazetters or the Oxford English place name Dictionary. This suggests that the surname is one of the estimated three thousand and more which originate from now totally "lost" medieval places in the British Isles, of which the only reminder in the late 20th century, is the surname itself sometimes in a wide variety of spellings. The earliest recording in surviving church registers of the diocese of Greater London may be that of Elizabeth Clempton, the daughter of Richard Clempton, who was christened at All Hallows church, London Wall, on March 11th 1627, whilst William Clampton married Ann Saunders at the famous church of St Mary-le-Bone, also in the city of London, on April 13th 1684. The surname spelling might suggest the meaning to be "The farm (tun) of the metal worker" from the Olde German and later Anglo-Saxon word klemp or klamp meaning a vice. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was sometimes known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.