Bosomworth

The only certainty about this surname is that it is English, and probably locational. There does not appear to be any such place as 'Bosomworth' unless either it is a dialectal form of the two Leicestershire villages called Market Bosworth and Husbands Bosworth, the site of the battle of Bosworth in 1485, or it is a development of a now lost medieval village. The latter is quite possible, an estimated five thousand British surnames do derive from places which have completely disappeared, the surviving surname being the only identification. It is our opinion that Bosomworth, it is also recorded as Bosenworth, (see below), is a variation of Bosworth, and if so the translation is probably the 'wild boars wood'. More logically it was an area fenced against the wild boar which roamed England in the pre-Norman period. The village is registered in the 1086 Domesday Book as 'Bareswode', the latter 'Bosworth' appearing in about the year 1230. Early examples of the recording include Rebecca Bosworthe at St James Church, Clerkenwell, London, in 1570, and Edward Bosworth, rector of Tasburgh, Norfolk, in 1679. Ann Bosomworth married John Williams at St Martins in the Field, Westminster, on January 22nd 1758, and Mary Ann Bosenworth married David Lee at St Clement Danes, London, on December 10th 1792. The coat of arms has the blazon of a gold field, a red lion rampant, collared in silver. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of John de Bosworth, which was dated 1377, the rolls known as the 'Feet of Fines', Norfolk, during the reign of King Richard 11, known as 'Richard of Bordeaux', 1377 - 1399. 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.