The surname of BLEASDALE was a locational name 'of Bleasdale' a chapelry in the parish of Lancaster. The surname is still chiefly found in that district, but it has managed to cross the Atlantic and lives in Boston in a slightly varied form. Habitation names were originally acquired by the original bearer of the name, who, having lived by, at or near a place, would then take that name as a form of identification for himself and his family. When people lived close to the soil as they did in the Middle Ages, they were acutely conscious of every local variation in landscape and countryside. Every field or plot of land was identified in normal conversation by a descriptive term. If a man lived on or near a hill or mountain, or by a river or stream, forests and trees, he might receive the word as a family name. Almost every town, city or village early times, has served to name many families. John Bleasdale of Inkleingreen in Bolland, was listed in the Wills at Chester in 1619, and Robert Bleasdell was documented in the same Wills in 1611. The acquisition of surnames in Europe during the past eight hundred years has been affected by many factors, including social class and social structure, naming practices in neighbouring cultures, and indigenous cultural tradition. On the whole, the richer and more powerful classes tended to acquire surnames earlier than the working classes and the poor, while surnames were quicker to catch on in urban areas than in more sparsely populated rural areas. These facts suggest that the origin of surnames is associated with the emergence of bureaucracies. As long as land tenure, military service, and fealty were matters of direct relationship between a lord and his vassals, the need did not arise for fixed distinguishing epithets to mark out one carl from another. But as societies became more complex, and as such matters as the management of tenure and in particular the collection of taxes were delegated to special functionaries, it became imperative to have a more complex system of nomenclature to distinguish one individual from another reliably and unambiguously. Henry Bleasdall of Chepping was recorded in the Lancashire Wills at Richmond in 1616, and Alice Bleasdaile of Chipping is recorded in the Wills in 1668. A notable member of the name is Alan Bleasdale, born in 1946, the English dramatist. He was the author of the popular TV series 'The Boys from the Blackstuff' (1983) about a group of unemployed Liverpudlians. He has written several stage plays, including 'Are You Lonesome Tonight?' (1985) a respectful musical about Elvis Presley. No arms recorded |
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