Inderwick

This unusual name is of Scottish origin, and is a variant form of the locational surname deriving from the place called Innerwick near Dunbar in East Lothian; the surname is also found as Inderwick. The place was so called from its ownership by a family of the name Innerwick, vassals of the Stewarts, who obtained their lands in the latter part of the 12th Century. It is possible, therefore, that the original name was topographical in the first instances, and derived from the Olde English pre 7th Century "inner(r)a, in(n)ra", inner, with "wic", used variously to denote a dwelling, hamlet, or farm, especially a dairy-farm. The name may therefore have been first used to distinguish one who lived at or by the "inner farm" of a settlement. One William de Innerwic was witness to the grant of the Church of Craigie (in Ayrshire) to the monks of Paisley in 1272, and Robert Inderwick or Innerwick was recorded in Chirnside in 1652, in the Lauder Commissariot Record. Among the recordings of the surname in Church Registers are the marriage of Isabel Enderwick and William Wardrop on January 21st 1753, in Edinburgh, and the christening of John, son of Alexander Enderwick, at Swalwell in County Durham, on January 3rd 1751. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Roland de Inuerwic, which was dated circa 1190, in the "Register of Charters of the Abbey of Tiron", Kelso, Scotland, during the reign of King William, known as "The Lion of Scotland", 1165 - 1214. 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.