Wigglesworth International Genealogy Group Study.

Spelling ‘Wigglesworth’

  In the earliest records Wigglesworth is spelt Wyggilsworthe, Wygglysworth, Wigelsworth,Wiglesworth and Wigglesworth, sometimes it has an ‘e’ on the end, sometimes not. It was very variable, in the wills of a husband and wife who died in 1642 and 1649 Thomas’ name was spelt Wigglesworth and Mary was described as ‘widow of Thomas Wiglesworth’. Evenually the spelling settled down, most branches spell their name with ‘gg’, but a few (about 1 in 50) retain the older single ‘g’ spelling, and some spell their name with ‘el’ not ‘le’.

  The Wrigglesworth family, by contrast, originates not in Wigglesworth but in Woodlesford near Rothwell to the east of Leeds. George Wigglesworth has looked at the distribution of the names in Yorkshire telephone books and found that while Wigglesworth is concentrated in the Bradford, Wakefield and Leeds area, Wrigglesworth is concentrated further east in the York, Leeds and Wakefield areas. Often, however, Wigglesworth is misspelled as Wrigglesworth, and many people think that they are the same family.  The earliest records that we have seem to indicate that they are indeed different families, for instance there were no Wrigglesworths at all in the Craven area in 1524.

Origins of the Wigglesworth name

The name Wigglesworth derives from the village of Wigglesworth in the north west of the county of Yorkshire. The name means ‘someone who comes from

Wigglesworth’. It may indicate a relationship with the Lords of the Manor of Wigglesworth or simply be the name of a peasant from the village. However since the village is little more than a hamlet, and as far as we are able to tell it has never been of any great size, it is possible that most people called Wigglesworth have a dash of Norman blood, and very possible that they are all related.

  The name of the village is believed to have originated in Saxon times , ‘wicel’, the name of a person, or ‘wincel’ meaning ‘of the child’ forming the first part, with the last part ‘worth’ deriving from the Anglo-Saxon word wory (that’s not a y, it’s the archaic letter ‘thorn’ which is the one that’s being used in Ye Olde Tea Shoppe and is pronounced as th.)

  Wigglesworth village is mentioned in Domesday Book (1086) when about 120 acres of it (one caracute) was in the Manor of (Long) Preston and about 150 acres (ten oxgangs) was in Rathmell. Later the Manor belonged to the monks of Fountains Abbey to whom it had been given by William, son of Godfrey de Neversheim

The Norman Lords of the Manor of Wigglesworth

  The history of the family that acquired the area as a result of the Norman Conquest begins about 950 in Normandy. There lived, at that time, in the area of Rouen, a man named Herfast ‘the lucky forester’. His good fortune was to have five beautiful daughters who all married into the Norman aristocracy. Most of the English aristocracy descend from these five girls. The youngest of the five (whose name has been lost) married Godfrey de Neversheim, Godfrey’s brother William built the castle of Arques and subsequently rebelled against William, Duke of Normandy. As punishment the castle was given to William de Arques’ nephew, William son of Godfrey who then became known as William Visconte de Arques. William’s son (another William) fought at the Battle of Hastings and in return his father and his heirs were granted lands in Wigglesworth. The property at Wigglesworth passed through the family, sometimes passing down the female line through a series of dynastic marriages.

By 1240 the de Arches (anglicised from the Norman) were calling themselves de Arches de Wykelesworth and that name gradually passed into normal use.

  In the early 1300s Elinor de Arches married first a Stephen de Hammerton, by whom she had a son Adam, then, after Stephen’s death remarried to her cousin John Wigglesworth, probably one main branch of the family derives from this second marriage.  With the marriage to Stephen the manor passed to the de Hammertons. The manor passed out of the hands of the de Hammertons when in 1536 Sir Stephen de Hammerton (of Wigglesworth Hall) became involved with the revolt known as the Pilgrimage of Grace and was subsequently executed for treason.

The Arms of the de Arches

  The de Arches family at Wigglesworth Hall had a coat of arms consisting of three silver arches on a red shield. In 1812 these arms were held by a family called Wigglesworth. So far we haven’t seen the original arms, if any of you have a picture of them we’d love to include it in a future newsletter. We don’t know which branch of the family held the arms in 1812, if any of you do know please pass the news on. You may find that you have the right to bear the arms as well!  You would be able to find out from the College of Heralds - but they are extremely expensive!  Interestingly the arms of Wigglesworth Hall at Harvard University (named after the descendants of Michael Wigglesworth who were the earliest Profesors of Divinity there) also show the same three arches, but on a blue shield.

Wigglesworth Hall

  The lords of the manor of Wigglesworth had built a Manor House there, how early the original building was established is not known. Certainly in the time of the de Hammertons there was an imposing manor house with its own chapel. A magnificent tithe barn was added, probably in the early sixteenth century, and about 1650 a new hall was built, the old one being used as a farmhouse. (With thanks to George W. for permission to extract from his booklet “Wigglesworth Hall”)

Where did the Wigglesworths go?

  As the Wigglesworth family moved out of the village they spread mainly to the east, north and south. Few of them moved to the west since the Forest of Bowland, largely uninhabited to this day, lies to the west of Wigglesworth. In the 1672 Hearth Tax lists we can still see most Wigglesworths in the area immediately around Wigglesworth itself, though there are a few families further away. There were also, by that time,Wigglesworths in America, where Edward Wigglesworth emigrated in the early 1600s. His descendants are there to this day.  We believe that Edward and his family moved from Lincolnshire - though they clearly had strong links with Yorkshire.  There was a branch of the Wigglesworth family in north Lincolnshire from the earliest parish records.  They were found in closely adjoining parishes and all called their sons by the same names, so I believe that they were related, and I think it unlikely that they had been there very long -perhaps between 50 and 100 years, which would mean that they arrived there between 1500 and 1550.

  Even in 1881 there were three times as many Wigglesworths in Yorkshire (around 1000) as there were in Lancashire (300), the county to the east. The main concentrations were in the Aire valley, a natural route from Wigglesworth into the heart of the industrial area.

There have been other migrations to the ‘New World’ since Edward, with his wife and two children. Andrea W in California has extensive knowledge of the descendants of Matthew who went from Pateley Bridge in about 1830, Jim W knows about the descendants of Thomas William who went to Canada from near Wakefield, Vivienne Retford knows about the descendants of Susannah (Wigglesworth) Wharfe who went (via New Zealand) to Australia and Jerry Scott knows about the descendants of Sally (Wigglesworth) Nelson, who also went to the USA. There is another branch in Spotsylvania County since at least 1730, the first member of the family we can find there is john, but where he came from we don't yet know.  In the middle 1800s several Wigelsworths from County Roscommon in Ireland moved either to the UK, or to Canada or Georgia - we have descendnats of the Irish branch who can help you if you think you're another member of this family branch.  Recent research has found the birth certificate of James Wood Wigglesworth who went to Canada in about 1866 and settled in Toronto.  We also have a descendant of the Wigglesworths of Cawthorne in the USA, and of Smith Wigglesworth, the evangelist, in New Zealand.

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