Tipperton

This is a very interesting English locational surname for at least two reasons. Firstly it seems to be very rare, and secondly Tipperton, the place from which it originated, apparently no longer exists, although it did as recently as Victorian times. Lost villages in the British Isles can be described as a negative feature of the countryside, in that some five thousand that were in place in Elizabethan times or earlier, have disappeared in the last five centuries. The reasons are varied but include plague, more recently urbanization, and even war. It is however rare for one to have 'disappeared' in almost the last century! The census records of 1851 for Eastington parish in the Stroud area of the county of Gloucestershire, show that a Charles Beckett aged twenty two was given as being 'of Tipperton'. He was a cordwainer or leather worker. As regards Tipperton name holders, they appear to have been scattered to the four winds. A good example of an 18th century recording is that of John Tipperton. He married Ann Whittington at Aldingbourne in Sussex, on October 11th 1727 in the first year of the reign of King George 11nd. Currently nameholders are recorded in the USA, where Sue Tipperton is or was a theatrical producer. The Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names records Tipton in Staffordshire and gives a meaning of 'Tibba's farm' with Tibba being possibly a short form of Theobald. Presumably Tipperton has a similar meaning, although 'a place of flints', from the Olde English word 'typpe', is also possible.