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The name Wollverston came to England with the ancestors of the Wollverston family in the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Wollverston family lived in Suffolk, at Wolverston. The surname Wollverston was originally derived from the Old English elements wulf, meaning wolf, and tun, meaning settlement or enclosure. The name was originally Wulkton, and gradually evolved into its current form.
The surname Wollverston was first found in Suffolk where they held a family seat as Lords of the Manor of Woolverstone. At the time of the taking of the Domesday Book, 1 a survey initiated by Duke William of Normandy in the year 1086 A.D. after his conquest of England in 1066, Woolverstone was held by a Norman Noble, Robert Gernon, and as was the Norman custom, the second son adopted the name of the manor or village for his surname. At the survey Woolverstone was a village, with a church, 12 beasts, 30 pigs, 100 sheep and 36 goats. The Church was rebuilt by Sir Gilbert Scott in the 19th century.
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Wollverston research. Another 103 words (7 lines of text) covering the years 1492, 1525, 1570, 1582 and 1592 are included under the topic Early Wollverston History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
It is only in the last few hundred years that the English language has been standardized. For that reason, Anglo-Norman surnames like Wollverston are characterized by many spelling variations. Scribes and monks in the Middle Ages spelled names they sounded, so it is common to find several variations that refer to a single person. As the English language changed and incorporated elements of other European languages such as Norman French and Latin, even literate people regularly changed the spelling of their names. The variations of the name Wollverston include Wolferstan, Wolferstone, Wolverstone, Wolverston, Wolversdon, Wolversden, Wolversdan, Wolferston, Woolferstone, Woolverston and many more.
Outstanding amongst the family at this time was Mary Wolverston, better known as Lady Killigrew (c. 1525-1582), a Suffolk woman who was accused of piracy during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. As the story goes, whenever her husband went to sea, Mary engaged in piracy using the staff of her castle (Arwenack Castle in Cornwall) as...
Another 57 words (4 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Wollverston Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
Faced with the chaos present in England at that time, many English families looked towards the open frontiers of the New World with its opportunities to escape oppression and starvation. People migrated to North America, as well as Australia and Ireland in droves, paying exorbitant rates for passages in cramped, unsafe ships. Many of the settlers did not make the long passage alive, but those who did see the shores of North America were welcomed with great opportunity. Many of the families that came from England went on to make essential contributions to the emerging nations of Canada and the United States. Some of the first immigrants to cross the Atlantic and come to North America carried the name Wollverston, or a variant listed above: Benjamin Wolverston and Elizabeth Wolverstone who settled in Barbados with their servants in 1679.