Notes & Queries response: Why is the surname Farmer so uncommon when there were large numbers of farmers for so long?
This is my response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on 15th January, 2023.
The Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their site, so it is appearing here instead.
This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of fair use.
“If near every man within your narrow horizons is a farmer, then you must look towards those extraneous personal details that serve to distinguish him from his neighbour.”
So said Robert May, as he cast his eyeline from the tremoring seat of his tractor, across the scattered village of golden haystacks that dotted the stubbled cornfield, while inwardly his mind's eye roved freely in the past, turning over the old ground and unearthing pieces of history in anecdotal fragments:
Eric Taylor was trampled by two of his herd, over-eager for their fodder. He lay paralysed in the meadow for a day and a night. They say that the cows gathered around him in a protective circle. In silhouette they resembled a hill fort that had come down onto the floodplain. It was not until their anthem of mooing – the weariest of all the hymns – drowned out the voices of the Sunday congregation in the village church, that the vicar (a man called Mackie) called the service to a halt and said: “Best go and look.”
In the wake of the accident, Eric could no longer farm, but he learned how to sew and how to repair the sails of the fishing boats that dragged white plough-lines into the straits beyond in the bay, which he could see from his window on the hill. He used a homespun thread that was made from sheeps wool.
His son fashioned wedding suits for all the country squires in the area. His grandson ended the family's ties to the land and moved to London where he established a tailors shop, that closed after he died. The descendants of Eric Taylor are everywhere, though not one of them farms, or fashions cloth.
George Amphlett drew his surname from the shallow creek that ran along the boundary of his freehold, along with the water that he used to sustain his family and a small herd of cattle. The character of the stream, preserved in Norman-era French, jumped up from its stony bed and became the word that, to this day, binds Amphlett's lineage together through the centuries. Its wet larval form sunk under the landscape, its name forgotten, if it ever had one; its course known only in piecemeal form to the plumbers, who are called out to address the issue of the damp rising in the walls of the new estates that patch the old meadowlands.
Andrew Yalstobb cultivated yellow stobb on Saxon fields that were being slowly reclaimed by the sea. The flowers were dried and ground down for their sulphur, which was used to make gunpowder. Perhaps some of low clouds that were seeded by cannon fire across the disputed territories of the Empire had their roots on Yalstobb's dreary acreage. The day came when the new crop whitened the marsh. The yellow vanished from the petals, never to return, leaving the flowers unfit for any conceivable purpose. One who lived in those times might have said that a change had come over the land. A modern agriculturalist would tell you that the crop had exhausted the mineral content of the soil. We do not know the fate of Andrew; to where he dragged his obsolete moniker while the ink still wet on it, or whether he was able to rise above this sour reminder of his recent past. It is an ugly portmanteau – presumably a fusion of 'yellow' and 'stobb', turned hard on the tongues of artillerymen. The only occasion that I can recall seeing the name was on a painted wooden sign above a key-cutter's booth, in the subway of Tottenham Court Road Underground, many years prior to the station's Crossrail refurbishment. I used to walk past it on my way to work.
During the Autumn of 2009, I shared a weak joint with Paul Waiter, in the alleyway outside The Railhead Tavern. The partly-open kitchen door lay down a triangle of yellow light that was answered by the netted shadow of the diamond-wire fence opposite. The dishwasher was broken. Behind us, the enormous trough-like sink was slowly filling up. Of course we both forgot about it and were alerted to the overflow by an iceberg of soap suds sliding between and around our feet.
Paul's distant ancestor, James, drove sheep on the hills around Meadlunn. He was a watchman on the town gate at Sheehaven (now Sheepbrook). One night, while on guard, his final words of warning were skewered by a crossbow bolt that passed through his open mouth, pinning the remains his tongue to the stone wall behind.
His life may have been cut short, but he had already done his work - two sons to carry his new name into history. His descendent Paul, who had misconstrued the original meaning of the surname as relating to his then profession, grudgingly regarded it as a sort of determinism – an indicator that he would never rise any higher in the world than waiting tables. I lost contact with him and do not know his fate.
With the engine throb of the tractor dying, the torn seat leather ceased its frantic flapping in time to the vibrations. Robert May reined-in his gaze and allowed his memories to settle.
Our family names are fashioned from the landscape and the seasons. If we are unfortunate, they are formed from the misdeeds, or the foolish actions, of our ancestors. Commonly they are associated with the vocations of men and women whose lives are mostly forgotten. Maybe it was thought once, that by nailing a profession to a family lineage these occupations would be handed down from father to son, with every fresh soul steering a tried and tested course from cradle to grave.
Unlike these shared words that serve to identify our close family members and our more-distant kin, the land reshapes itself, while the new centuries make fresh demands upon each generation, and old professions fall to the advance of progress. The haystacks that were built to resemble houses have the permanence of sandcastles. They are pulled apart, one stalk at a time, by the wind.
I hope this is of help.
The Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their site, so it is appearing here instead.
This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of fair use.
~
Why is the surname Farmer so uncommon when there were large numbers of farmers for so long?
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| image generated by Craiyon |
So said Robert May, as he cast his eyeline from the tremoring seat of his tractor, across the scattered village of golden haystacks that dotted the stubbled cornfield, while inwardly his mind's eye roved freely in the past, turning over the old ground and unearthing pieces of history in anecdotal fragments:
Eric Taylor was trampled by two of his herd, over-eager for their fodder. He lay paralysed in the meadow for a day and a night. They say that the cows gathered around him in a protective circle. In silhouette they resembled a hill fort that had come down onto the floodplain. It was not until their anthem of mooing – the weariest of all the hymns – drowned out the voices of the Sunday congregation in the village church, that the vicar (a man called Mackie) called the service to a halt and said: “Best go and look.”
In the wake of the accident, Eric could no longer farm, but he learned how to sew and how to repair the sails of the fishing boats that dragged white plough-lines into the straits beyond in the bay, which he could see from his window on the hill. He used a homespun thread that was made from sheeps wool.
His son fashioned wedding suits for all the country squires in the area. His grandson ended the family's ties to the land and moved to London where he established a tailors shop, that closed after he died. The descendants of Eric Taylor are everywhere, though not one of them farms, or fashions cloth.
George Amphlett drew his surname from the shallow creek that ran along the boundary of his freehold, along with the water that he used to sustain his family and a small herd of cattle. The character of the stream, preserved in Norman-era French, jumped up from its stony bed and became the word that, to this day, binds Amphlett's lineage together through the centuries. Its wet larval form sunk under the landscape, its name forgotten, if it ever had one; its course known only in piecemeal form to the plumbers, who are called out to address the issue of the damp rising in the walls of the new estates that patch the old meadowlands.
Andrew Yalstobb cultivated yellow stobb on Saxon fields that were being slowly reclaimed by the sea. The flowers were dried and ground down for their sulphur, which was used to make gunpowder. Perhaps some of low clouds that were seeded by cannon fire across the disputed territories of the Empire had their roots on Yalstobb's dreary acreage. The day came when the new crop whitened the marsh. The yellow vanished from the petals, never to return, leaving the flowers unfit for any conceivable purpose. One who lived in those times might have said that a change had come over the land. A modern agriculturalist would tell you that the crop had exhausted the mineral content of the soil. We do not know the fate of Andrew; to where he dragged his obsolete moniker while the ink still wet on it, or whether he was able to rise above this sour reminder of his recent past. It is an ugly portmanteau – presumably a fusion of 'yellow' and 'stobb', turned hard on the tongues of artillerymen. The only occasion that I can recall seeing the name was on a painted wooden sign above a key-cutter's booth, in the subway of Tottenham Court Road Underground, many years prior to the station's Crossrail refurbishment. I used to walk past it on my way to work.
During the Autumn of 2009, I shared a weak joint with Paul Waiter, in the alleyway outside The Railhead Tavern. The partly-open kitchen door lay down a triangle of yellow light that was answered by the netted shadow of the diamond-wire fence opposite. The dishwasher was broken. Behind us, the enormous trough-like sink was slowly filling up. Of course we both forgot about it and were alerted to the overflow by an iceberg of soap suds sliding between and around our feet.
Paul's distant ancestor, James, drove sheep on the hills around Meadlunn. He was a watchman on the town gate at Sheehaven (now Sheepbrook). One night, while on guard, his final words of warning were skewered by a crossbow bolt that passed through his open mouth, pinning the remains his tongue to the stone wall behind.
His life may have been cut short, but he had already done his work - two sons to carry his new name into history. His descendent Paul, who had misconstrued the original meaning of the surname as relating to his then profession, grudgingly regarded it as a sort of determinism – an indicator that he would never rise any higher in the world than waiting tables. I lost contact with him and do not know his fate.
~
With the engine throb of the tractor dying, the torn seat leather ceased its frantic flapping in time to the vibrations. Robert May reined-in his gaze and allowed his memories to settle.
Our family names are fashioned from the landscape and the seasons. If we are unfortunate, they are formed from the misdeeds, or the foolish actions, of our ancestors. Commonly they are associated with the vocations of men and women whose lives are mostly forgotten. Maybe it was thought once, that by nailing a profession to a family lineage these occupations would be handed down from father to son, with every fresh soul steering a tried and tested course from cradle to grave.
Unlike these shared words that serve to identify our close family members and our more-distant kin, the land reshapes itself, while the new centuries make fresh demands upon each generation, and old professions fall to the advance of progress. The haystacks that were built to resemble houses have the permanence of sandcastles. They are pulled apart, one stalk at a time, by the wind.
I hope this is of help.
 |
| image generated by Craiyon |
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