Wadhams History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

The surname Wadhams was first found in Devon where the village and seat of the Wadhams was recorded as being held by Ulf in the taking of the Domesday Book in 1086, who also held the lands before the Conquest. The Domesday Book was a census of all England commissioned by Duke William of Normandy after his conquest of Britain. At this census Ulf, a Saxon, is recorded as holding from the King as a tenant, the small village and farm holdings including 8 wild mares and 12 cattle. 1

Another source notes: "Wadham in Knowstone parish, the original residence of the Wadhams, is one of the few Devon manors noticed in ' Domesday,' as continuing in the same Saxon hands from the reign of the Confessor, and the Lysonses suggest it as not improbable that the holder, Ulf, may have been the ancestor of the Wadham family. There is at any rate nothing to militate against this hypothesis. " 2

"The village of Branscombe, [in Sidmouth, Devon] with its partially Norman church, claims a niche not merely in county but in general history, from its personal connections. Soon after the Conquest the property of a family named after the place, it passed to the Wadhams, by whom it was held for eight generations. Nicholas and Dorothy Wadham, the last owners of that name, founding Wadham College, appropriated thereto great portion of their wealth. When Nicholas Wadham died, in 1609, he left his estate to the families of Wyndham and Strangways. A monument in the church is appropriated to Dorothy Wadham. The Wadhams lived in an old house still standing, called Edge, or Egge. " 2

The church of St. Martin in the town of Liskeard, Cornwall "contains two inscriptions, recording two benefactions bequeathed for charitable purposes; and a memorial for Joseph Wadham, who died in 1707, who is described as the last of that family whose ancestors were the founders of Wadham College, Oxford." 3