Lockhurst

This is an English locational surname, apparently of very early origins, but not proved by research. The suggestions are that it could be a variant form of the more usual Luckhurst, or equally that it is a stand alone surname. Certainly there was a medieval hamlet called Lockhurst Lane in the county of Warwickshire, two miles from the city of Coventry. The spelling is from the pre 7th century Old English 'loca' a clearing, 'hurst' - a wood, and 'lane', a minor road, however there is no indication of the Lockhurst surname in any of the church registers of Warwickshire back to 1550. This is not entirely surprising as by their nature locational surnames were often 'from' names, or names given to people when they moved from their original homes to somewhere else. In addition before Victorian times fewer than 10% of the British population could do much more than write or spell their own name, which allowed over the centuries many surnames to be transposed in spelling - whether they moved around or not. This is now genteelly referred to as 'folk etymology'. It would seem that there is some documentary evidence that the Luckhurst spelling originated from a place recorded in 1553 as Lukhars Crouche in Sussex. Lukhars Crouche, - crouche is a development of crux, a cross, - may have been 'cleared' in the 17th century to build the present country seat on the same site and now called Luckhurst. Luckhurst as a surname would seem to be first recorded at Wadhurst in Sussex in 1668, suggesting that however unlikely some local people may have changed their name spelling to reflect the new building. This date from the reign of King Charles 11nd known to history as The Merry Monarch (and with good reason) is very late for the creation of an English surname. However for Lockhurst it is no better. A research of the church registers of the city of London, and the counties of Kent and Sussex, gives pretty poor results, with no Lockhursts recorded in Sussex at all, a few in Kent, and much the same in London, suggesting that the two names are not connected - and that the Lockhurst 'home' lies somewhere else. (Where?) The few recordings include the marriage of Elizabeth Lockhurst to John Martin at Tenterden, Kent, on April 9th 1751, whilst in the city of London, the earliest is believed to be William Lockhurst whose son Charles was christened at St Martins in the Fields, Westminster, on July 6th 1790.