Halton

This interesting surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational surname, from various places so called throughout England, such as those in Berkshire, Lincolnshire, Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire, to name but a few, there being at least eleven Haltons in England. Perhaps surprisingly the different villages of Halton have several alternative origin translations; the usual meaning is "hall farm", the farm (tun) belonging to the manor house (halh), but other variants include "valley farm" (originally "haugh-tun"), and "rocky farm" (hol-tun), these being from Lancashire and Lincolnshire respectively. The placename and the surname first appears in Norman times, the surname development includes: Richard de Halton (Lincolnshire, 1270); Henry Halton, witness, at the London Assizes in 1470; whilst John de Halton, Bishop of Carlisle circa 1305, excommunicated Robert the Bruce. Notable namebearers listed in the "Dictionary of National Biography" are Immanuel Halton (1628 - 1699), whose observation of a solar eclipse was reported to the Royal Society in 1675, and Timothy Halton, provost of Queen's College, Oxford, 1677 - 1704; he was vice-chancellor of Oxford from 1679 - 1681. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Algar de Haltona, which was dated 1086, in the Domesday Book, during the reign of King William 1, known as "The Conqueror", 1066 - 1087. 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.