Stuckley

Recorded in the spellings of Stewkley, Stuckley, Stukeley, and Stukely, this is an English locational surname. It originates either from the village of Stukeley in Huntingdon, now split and known as Great and Little Stukeley, or from Stewkley in Berkshire. Both original village(s) are ancient. The Huntingdon version being first recorded in the year 974 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles as 'Stiveleia', whilst the Berkshire version is a Domesday Book recording in the similar spelling of 'Stivelai'. According to Ekwalls 'Dictionary of English place names', the meaning in both cases is the 'enclosure (leah) covered with tree stubs (styfic)'. Locational surnames are usually 'from' names. That is to say that they were given to people after they left their original homes and moved elsewhere, often to the 'mecca' of London, in search of work. Early examples of the surname recordings taken from surviving church registers of the post reformation period include: John Stucklie, a witness at the church of St Mary Whitchapel, in the city of London, on February 2nd 1588, Elizabeth Stukley, the daughter of Richard Stukley, christened at St Margarets, Westmminster, in November 1605. Curiously the actual date is not recorded, but this is the month when the adjoining "Houses of Parliament" should have been blown up in the famous "Gunpowder Plot", so perhaps the clerics had other things on their minds.