Hearding History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

Origins Available:
Scotland
Ireland
England

The ancestry of the name Hearding goes back to the Vikings, who settled on the rocky shores of ancient Scotland. Hearding was a name for a hard working or arduous person, deriving its origin from name the Old French word hearding, which meant hard. [1]

"The Hardings in Anglo-Saxon Heardingas, in Old Norse Haddingjar were celebrated as an illustrious and heroic race. The late Lord Hardinge claimed to be descended from a Danish family settled near Derby. The Domesday forms are Harding, Hardingus, Hardinc and filius Harding. The soft sound given to the G, when the E final is employed, seems to be a modern affectation, quite unworthy of this sturdy old race." [2]

Early Origins of the Hearding family

The surname Hearding was first found in Bristol, where the first record of the family was Harding of Bristol (c.1048-1125), Sheriff Reeve of Bristol. He was the son of Eadnoth the Constable (died 1068), an Anglo-Saxon thane who served as steward to Edward the Confessor and Harold II. One of the Harding of Bristol's sons was Robert Fitzharding (c. 1095-1170), 1st feudal Baron of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, an Anglo-Saxon nobleman who was granted the feudal barony of Berkeley in Gloucestershire and was ancestor of the Berkeley family of Berkeley Castle.

The Latin form, Hardingus was recorded at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk c. 1095 and later as Ardinghus in Oxfordshire at Oseney in 1200. [3]

Harding or St. Stephen (d. 1134), was Abbot of Citeaux and was born of parents of good position at Sherborne in Dorsetshire, probably early in the second half of the eleventh century, and received his education in the monastery of his native place. "A desire to travel and to increase his learning took him first to Scotland and then to Paris. " [4]

Roger Harding was listed in the Pipe Rolls of Northumberland in 1199 and Richard Harding was found in the Assize Rolls for Yorkshire in 1204. Back in Oxfordshire, Hugh Arding was listed at Oseney in 1244. [3]

John Hardyng (1378-1465?), was an early chronicler, born, according to his own account, in 1378, belonged to a northern family. "He was admitted at the age of twelve into the household of Sir Henry Percy (Hotspur), eldest son of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. From an early period Hardyng busied himself in investigations into the feudal relations of the English and Scottish crowns, and during the reign of Henry V visited Scotland with a view to procuring official documents to prove the subservience from the earliest times of Scotland to England. " [4]

An further investigation of early rolls revealed Hugh Harding in Cambridgeshire and Nicol Harding in Oxfordshire in the Hundredorum Rolls of 1273. The Yorkshire Poll Tax Rolls of 1379 included Johannes Hardyng; and Thomas Hardyng, 1379. [5]

Early History of the Hearding family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Hearding research. Another 195 words (14 lines of text) covering the years 1086, 1048, 1125, 1134, 1378, 1465, 1415, 1516, 1572, 1593, 1658, 1601, 1658, 1648, 1610, 1622, 1648, 1641, 1618, 1634, 1638 and 1797 are included under the topic Early Hearding History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Hearding Spelling Variations

Contemporary spellings of ancient Scottish names often bear little resemblance to the original recorded versions. These spelling variations result from the fact that medieval scribes spelled words and names alike according to their sounds. Hearding has been spelled Harding, Hardinge and others.

Early Notables of the Hearding family (pre 1700)

Notable amongst the Clan from early times was Thomas Harding (1516-1572), an English Roman Catholic priest and controversialist, born at Beckington, Somersetshire. [4] Richard Hardinge (c.1593-1658), was a Groom to the Bedchamber to the then Prince of Wales; George Harding, 8th Baron Berkeley (1601-1658), was an English nobleman; and Thomas Harding, was a 16th century English religious dissident. Thomas Harding (d. 1648), was an English historian...
Another 63 words (4 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Hearding Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Migration of the Hearding family to Ireland

Some of the Hearding family moved to Ireland, but this topic is not covered in this excerpt.
Another 40 words (3 lines of text) about their life in Ireland is included in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Migration of the Hearding family

The colonies on the fertile east coast of North America soon had many farms run by Scots. These hardy settlers provided a backbone for the great nations of the United States and Canada that would emerge in the next centuries. Early North American immigration records have revealed a number of people bearing the Scottish name Hearding or a variant listed above, including: Robert Harding who sailed to Boston Massachusetts in 1630; he was a Freeman and Captain of Artillery. In Newfoundland, William Harding, born in Bedford, England. An alleged deserter from the Battle of Waterloo, he settled in Collins Cove in the 19th century.

Citations +

Smith, Eldson Coles, New Dictionary of American Family Names New York: Harper & Row, 1956. Print
Lower, Mark Anthony, Patronymica Britannica, A Dictionary of Family Names of the United Kingdom. London: John Russel Smith, 1860. Print.
Reaney, P.H and R.M. Wilson, A Dictionary of English Surnames. London: Routledge, 1991. Print. (ISBN 0-415-05737-X)
Smith, George (ed), Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1885-1900. Print
Bardsley, C.W, A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames: With Special American Instances. Wiltshire: Heraldry Today, 1901. Print. (ISBN 0-900455-44-6)