Wellan History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

The surname Wellan was first found in Devon at Welland which was listed in the Domesday Book of 1086. 1

Alternatively, the name could have originated in Welland, Worcestershire, a parish, in the union of Upton-upon-Severn, Lower division of the hundred of Oswaldslow. 2 3

Yet another source notes the name literally means "dweller at the Spring-Land [Old English w(i)ell (a spring, well + land] or dweller by the River Welland, occurring in very late copies or versions of Latin charters of the Anglo-Saxon period as Weland and Weeland. " 4

The Hundredorum Rolls of 1273 include some of the earliest records and the earliest spellings of the family: William de Welond, Gloucestershire; Thomas Welond, Oxfordshire; and Richard Welond, Suffolk. 5

Thomas de Weyland (fl. 1272-1290), was an early English judge, "a member of a Norfolk family that since the beginning of the thirteenth century had possessed land at Oxburgh and elsewhere in that county. The name comes from Weyland, a wood near Watton, which gives its name to a Norfolk hundred. The family had also possessed lands in Ireland since about 1248, at which time one William de Weyland was in Ireland, in the service of Aymer de Valence (d. 1260), the half-brother of Henry III. This William is probably the same as the Sir William de Weyland whom a pedigree in Blomefield's 'Norfolk,' the father of Thomas the judge. This William is generally identified with the William de Weyland who was escheator south of Trent between 1261 and 1265, justice itinerant, holder of many particular assizes, and justice of the common pleas in 1272 and 1273. There were several other Weylands mentioned in the records of this time whose precise relationship to each other and to the judge is hard to determine. " 6