Hawgood

Recorded as Hawgood, Haigood, Heagood and others, this is an English surname. It is presumably locational, and from a village somewhere, except that no such place in any of the known surname spellings has been located in the surviving gazetters of the past three centuries. This suggests that either the surname spelling has changed, which is quite likely, or the place name has changed which is possible but less likely, or the village has disappeared completely, which is possible. It is estimated that as many as five thousand villages, hamlets and on one occasion at least, a complete town, have disappeared from the maps in the past five centures. The reasons are complex and include coastal erosion, the great plagues, war, but usually land enclosure, general changes in farming practices, and increases in the industrial economy, which have all combined to drive people off the land, and into the cities. In so doing people took, or were given, as their surname, the name of their former village. Local dialects being very thick, and spelling at best indifferent, lead to the development of variant or 'sounds like' surname spellings. In this case we believe that the name may have been from what is now Hawkesworth in Yorkshire, but which at the time of Domesday Book in 1086 was 'Hafeswode', the wood of Hafoc. A good example of this surname is the recording of Thomas Hawgood at St Martins in the Field, Westminster, on January 15th 1692.