Wheldon

This name is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational surname from either the place in Derbyshire called Wheeldon, or the place called Whielden in Buckinghamshire. Wheeldon is so called from the Olde English pre 7th Century word "hweol", meaning "wheel", with "dun", hill, the "wheel" referring in a transferred sense to the rounded shape of the hill. Whielden is derived from the Olde English "hweol", as before, with "denu", meaning "valley"; hence, "a rounded valley". Locational surnames, such as this were usually acquired by a local landowner, or the lord of the manor, and especially by those former inhabitants of a place who moved to another area, usually in search of work, and were thereafter best identified by the name of their birthplace. The surname was first recorded in the latter half of the 13th Century (see below), and the modern surname can be found recorded as Wheeldon, Wheelden, Wheldon, Wildon and Whieldon. Recordings from London Church Registers include the christening of John Wheldon on March 28th 1697, at St. Mary Aldermary. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Hugo de Hweldon, which was dated 1279, in the "Hundred Rolls of Oxfordshire", during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. 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.