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THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

LIVERPOOL DISTRICT PLACE-NAMES.

^Liverpool . . . t/tai Saxon hive.' — Matthew Arnold.

' Liverpool . . . the greatest covunercial city in the world'

Nathaniel Hawthorne.

' That's a great city, and those are the lamps. It's Liverpool.' ' Christopher Tadpole ' (A. Smith).

' In the United Kingdom there is no city luhichfrom early days

has inspired me with so -much interest, none which I zvould so

gladly serve in any capacity, however humble, as the city of

Liverpool.'

Rev. J. E. C. Welldon.

THE PLACE-NAMES OF THE LIVERPOOL DISTRICT;

OR,

^he l)i0torj) mxb Jttciining oi the ^oral aiib llibev ^mncQ oi ,S0xitk-to£0t |£ancashtrc mxlb oi SEirral

BY

HENRY HARRISON,

•respiciendum est ut discamus ex pr^terito.

LONDON : ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G.

1898.

'^0

SIR JOHN T. BRUNNER, BART.,

OF "DRUIDS' CROSS," WAVERTREE,

MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR THE NOKTHWICH

DIVISION OF CHESHIRE,

THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

BY HIS OBEDIENT SERVANT,

THE AUTHOR.

807311

CONTENTS.

PACE

INTRODUCTION --.--. 5

BRIEF GLOSSARY OF SOME OF THE CHIEF ENGLISH

PLACE-NAME COMPONENTS - - - "17

DOMESDAY ENTRIES - - - - - 20

LINGUISTIC ABBREVIATIONS, ETC. - - - 23

LIVERPOOL ------- 24

HUNDRED OF WEST DERBY - - - "33

HUNDRED OF WIRRAL - - - - - 75

LIST OF WORKS QUOTED - - - - - lOI

INTRODUCTION.

This little onomasticon embodies, I believe, the first at- tempt to treat the etymology of the place-names of the Liverpool district upon a systematic basis. In various local and county histories endeavours have here and there been made to account for the origin of certain place-names, but such endeavours have unfortunately only too frequently been remarkable for anything but philological, and even topographical, accuracy. They are, however, generally chronicled, as a matter of record, in the present mono- graph, with such criticism and emendation as may have been thought necessary.

The science of philology has made rapid strides since the days when Syers, in his History of Everton, solemnly asserted that etymology, a branch of philology, was neither more nor less than " guessology " ; but even to-day, after all the accessible historical and philological evidence bearing upon a name has been thoroughly sifted and carefully weighed, there sometimes remains an element of uncer- tainty that creates a hiatus which must be filled by guess- ing— but, still, by what Professor Skeat has called, in this connection, " reasonable guessing,"^ not the kind of etymo-

^ Dr. Sweet says, in the preface to his new Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: 'The investigator of Old Enghsh ... is often obliged to work by guesswork, until some one else guesses better."

6 INTRODUCTION

logical jumping at conclusions which has, for example,

induced a Welshman to claim that the name Apollo is

derived from the Cymric Ap-Jiaul, ' Son of the Sun ' ; an

Irishman to assert that the Egyptian deity Osiris was of

Hibernian descent, and that the name should consequently

be written O'Siris; a Cornishman, saturated with the

Phoenician tradition, to declare that his Honeyball is a

corruption of Hannibal ; a Scotsman to infer an affinity

between the Egyptian Pharaoh and the Gaelic Fergus ; and

even an Englishman to calmly asseverate that Lambeth

(the ' lamb-hithe '), containing the palace of the Archbishop

of Canterbury, derived its name from the Thibetan llama,

'high-priest,' and the Hebrew beth, ' house.'

While, however, in England, we bring our guessing

powers into operation only, as a rule, after the lapse of

centuries, in America it sometimes happens that a place

receives its name one day and the next (so to speak) the

origin of that name is shrouded in mystery, as witness the

following characteristic extract from a recent number of a

Western States journal :

" Nobody around the oilfields seems to know why the new field is called Chipmunk. Most aver that it has always been Chipmunk ever since the time of the mound-builders. Others have it that the first white settler was eaten by chipmunks, ever since which notable event a pure white chipmunk has haunted the valley, scaring other chipmunks to death. Chii)munk may also be called Chipmunk because there are no chipmunks there."

In order to impose a more or less recognised limit upon the so-called district of Liverpool, it has, for the purpose of this treatise, been divided into two hundreds — that of West Derby, which comprises practically the whole of south-west Lancashire, and that of Wirral, which embraces the tongue of land separating the estuary of the Mersey from that of the Dee. The names enumerated in the body of the work, which is arranged in alphabetical form with respect to the two hundreds, I have summarized herewith, according to their linguistic origin :

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INTRODUCTION g

The chief fact to be gathered from these lists is that both in south-west Lancashire and in Wirral the Anglo- Saxon names are about three times as numerous as those of Norse origin ; and it was to be expected that, in a part of the country which was wrested from the British at a later period than is assigned to the Saxon conquest of most of the remaining portions of what ultimately came to be called England, distinct traces of Celtic nomenclature should be met with.^

" Letters, like soldiers," that acute philologist Home Tooke once observed, " are very apt to desert and drop off in a long march." Of this truism the vicinity of Liverpool is not behind other districts in affording good illustrations. The Norse Otegrimele and Otringemele, as chronicled in Domesday, have descended to us in the attenuated form of Orrell ; Levetesham is now Ledsham ; Stochestede, Toxteth ; Chenulveslei, Knowsley ; Herleshala, Halsall ; and so on. On the other hand, there are names which, in the course of time, have added a trifle to their length. Oxton at one period was Oxon ; Speke was Spec.

Luckily we are not blessed — or the reverse — with many names of the " funny " order, or even of that American genus against which Matthew Arnold declaimed : " When our race has built Bold Street, Liverpool, and pronounced it very good," caustically observed the author of T/ie Study of Celtic Literahire (p. 175), " it hurries across the Atlantic and builds Nashville, and Jacksonville, and Milledgeville,

1 \yords\vorth, whose Poems on the Naming of Places will be familiar to the reader, has well expressed in verse the changes wrought in Britain by the Saxon Conquest —

" Another language spreads from coast to coast ; Only perchance some melancholy stream And some indignant hills old names preserve, When laws, and creeds, and people all are lost !" —

Monastery of Old Bangor.

lo INTRODUCTION

and thinks it is fulfilling the designs of Providence in an incomparable manner."

Possibly Arnold may have borne in mind, too, the ludicrous origin of such American place-names as Elberon (L. B. Brown), Carasaljo (Carrie, Sally, and Joe), Eltopia (Hell-to-pay), and Nameless, which last-mentioned town received its incongruous designation because a lazy postal official at Washington, having repeatedly been urged by the inhabitants of a new and thriving village in Laurens County, Georgia, to select a name for it, at last testily telegraphed to the astonished settlers, " Let it remain nameless " ; and Nameless accordingly the place has been ever since. But, as I have remarked, we of the Liverpool district have very few of the kind of names at which an American once poked revengeful fun in a set of verses, one of which ran :

"At Scrooby and at Gonexby, At Wigton and at Smeeth, At Bottesford and Runcorn, I need not grit my teeth ; At Swineshead and at Crummock, At Sibsey and Spithead, Stoke Pogis and Wolsoken, I will not wish me dead."

Still we have to confess, with some degree of sadness, to a Puddington, a Mollington, a Noctorum, and a Greasby, all in Wirral ; while, as to the Lancashire side of the Mersey, we have often seen and heard prettier and more euphonious names than, say, Ravensmeols, Bold, Maghull, Skelmersdale, and Chowbent. Even a silver-tongued White- field, who was reputed to be able to " pronounce ' Mesopo- tamia' so as to make a congregation weep," would, we should imagine, have experienced some difficulty in invest- ing with charm the utterance of the names which we have just enumerated.

INTRODUCTION II

I have compiled (with special reference to the Hundreds of West Derby and Wirral) and appended to the Introduc- tion a brief glossary of some of the most frequently occurring English place-name components. It might perhaps be con- sidered amply sufficient when we recollect the Elizabethan Verstegan's oft misquoted couplet :

" In ford, in ham, in ley, and tun, The most of English surnames [place-names] run."

{Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities. )

But we must not forget that, as Kemble says {Cod. Dipl. iii. XV.), speaking of Anglo-Saxon place-nomenclature : •' The distinctions between even the slightest differences in the face of the country are marked with a richness and accuracy of language which will surprise ..." The com- ponents embodied in another well-worn distich :

" By tre, pol, and pen, Ye shall know the Cornishmen,"

do not, of course, come within the scope of the glossary.

Mention should be made of the difficulties which the Norman Conquest was the means of strewing, like caltrops or chevaux-de-frise, in the path of the investigator of Anglo- Saxon nomenclature. "The Normans," says Skeat, "spelt Anglo-Saxon names anyhow." "The Normans," Kemble grumbled, referring to the terms in Anglo-Saxon charters, "could not even spell the words." "The loose manner of spelling the names of English places in Doomsday Book cannot," observed Gregson in his Portfolio of Fragmetits, " be wondered at when it is considered that the Normans had the chief hand in compiling the returns."

Hardy, in his Introduction to the Close Rolls, portions of which essay have been borrowed by the writers of the

12 INTRODUCTION

Pipe Roll Society's introductory volume as being also applicable to the rolls with which they were dealing, re- marks : " Great ambiguity prevails in the proper names of persons and places which occur on the Close Rolls ; for these were either Latinized or Gallicized, whenever it was possible to do so, according to the fancy of the scribe or the degree of knowledge which he happened to possess. Thus he rendered into Latin or French a Norman or Saxon appellation just as he happened to prefer the one to the other. . . . Whitchurch is sometimes written De Albo Monasterio, sometimes Blancmuster or Blaunc- mustier."

Mr. G. Grazebrook, in a paper read before the Society of Antiquaries in February, 1897, on the spelling of mediaeval names, submitted a list of sixty-one various forms in which the name Grazebrook is found from the year 1200.

A good instance of the vagaries of a Norman writer or copyist of Anglo-Saxon is supplied in a MS. of ' The Proverbs of Alfred,' upon which Professor Skeat read a paper in May, 1897, at a meeting of the Philological Society {Athenccum, May 15, '97). The Norman scribe who wrote out this MS. has, amongst other blunders and peculiarities, t, and occasionally d, for final th, and, conversely, th for the English final t ; st (with long s) for the final ^A/; s for sh^ as sal for shal ; w for wh, as wat for what ; cherril for cJmrl ; arren for am; welethe for welt he ; chil for child; wen for went ; kinc for king ; wrsipe for tvorship ; hujit for htind, and ant for a7id. And when we find, to carry example a little further, an Anglo-Saxon Hweorfanliealh transformed in Domesday into Vurvenele, there is little ground for wonder that the pursuit of the etymology of a local name should sometimes be a tedious operation, although it must be said that there is scarcely need to

INTRODUCTION 13

spend the leisure of thirty years in endeavouring to ascer- tain the origin of a single place-name, as a resident of Kensington recently confessed in JVbfes and Queries to have done.

Of course, many amateur topographical derivation hunters lose considerable time in persistently endeavouring to trace the first element of an English place-name to some physical feature or characteristic, simple or complex, when all the time the prefix is often merely a personal name, possibly somewhat corrupted. It has probably been the fashion in all ages, and in all countries, for personal nomenclature to be used, in greater or less degree, in place designation : " And Cain . . . builded a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch." — Gen. iv. 17. " And they called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father."— y?^^^^^ xviii. 29.

For the benefit of the general reader it may not be thought superfluous to state that, of the two State Records of which the most frequent mention is made in the course of the monograph, the immortal Domesday Book was completed in A.D. 1086 ; while the Testa de Nevill, or, to give the Exchequer collection its full title, ' Testa de Nevill, sive Liber Feodorum in Curia Scaccarii,' relates ostensibly, and with little actual variation, to the times of Henry III. and Edward I. (1216 to 1307), and was compiled at the begin- ning of the reign of Edward III. The collection of Anglo- Saxon charters printed by Kemble — Codex Diplomaticus ^vi Saxonici — is comprised in six volumes, the first of which was published in 1839, the last in 1848. This work has now, to some extent, been superseded by the Cartu- lariicm Saxonicuin of Mr. de Gray Birch, the chief continu- ator of Kemble. The History of La?icashire quoted, with the date, for the second volume, of 1870, is Baines's excel-

14 INTRODUCTION

lent compilation as edited by the late John Harland, F.S.A., and continued and completed by Mr. Brooke Herford; although where necessary reference is made to Croston's edition, 1888-93. Ormerod's monumental History of Cheshire, first published in 181 9, was reissued in a revised form in 1882 by Mr. Helsby. Mr. Beamont's Domesday Cheshire and Lancashire should be mentioned in conjunc- tion with Colonel James's Domesday Facsimile of those two counties. The Publications of the Chetham Society, the Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire (which printed the collection of Lancashire and Cheshire documents in the Public Record Office edited by Mr. W. D. Selby, author of the vade-mecum of record searchers, Thejiibilee Date Book), the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, the Lan- cashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, and the Chester Architectural, Archaeological, and Historic Society of course provide splendid raw material for the student of Lancashire and Cheshire place-names, although here and there a paper with a not unpromising title, and by a well-known scholar, may, upon investigation, prove to be disappointing, as, for instance. Dr. Latham's essay ' On the Language of Lancashire under the Romans,' in vol. ix. (1857) of the Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Society.

My indebtedness for miscellaneous information to the above-mentioned and various other works (including the valuable treatises of the Rev. Canon Taylor), and to local antiquaries, is duly recorded in the proper place, and a bibliography is appended; but I should specially men- tion some MS. notes which Prof. Skeat, author of the much-used Etymological Dictionary, kindly placed at my disposal.

INTRODUCTION 15

Unfortunately, the aforesaid student of predial names in Lancashire and Cheshire cannot avail himself of a record which the topographic investigator in most other English counties can study with profit, viz., the Rotuli Hundredorum, or Hundred Rolls {tevip. Hen. HI. and Edw. I.), which contain no extract relative to the Counties Palatine of Lan- caster and Chester.

BRIEF GLOSSARY OF SOME OF THE CHIEF ENGLISH PLACE-NAME COMPONENTS.

{Compiled with special reference to the Liverpool District.)

Ac

ACK AlG AlK ^

Acre \

A(c)ker/

As-t

Bar

Bold, Bootle

Borough

Burgh

Bury

Bur

By

Carl (Eastern and Northern, i.e., Angl. and Dan.)

Chakl (Southern)

Chorl (Midland)

Caster (Angl. and Dan.)

Cester

Chester

Dale

Del-l

Ea )

Ey J

Gars

Gat-e

A. -Sax. ac, oak.

Sax.

Graf (prefix)"! Grave |-

Greve J

Hal(l)-e

Ham

A. -Sax. cEcer, field, acre.

A-Sax. edst, east.

A. -Sax. here, barley.

A. -Sax. bold, botl, dwelling.

(i) A. -Sax. biirh, burg, Scand. borg, fortified

place, castle, city ; (2) A. -Sax. beorh, beorg,

hill. A. -Sax. bAr (boor), one of the lowest class of

freemen, a husbandman ; also a bower. O. Nor. bczr. byr {Y>d^r\.-l^ot\\. and Swed. by),

settlement, farmstead, village.

A. -Sax, carl (Scand. karl), ceorl (churl), one of ! the lowest class of freemen, a husi)andman. (A I slave was a theo-o or a thnil, whence the surnames Thew and Thrale).

Lat. castra (pi. of caslruin), camp ; whence A. -Sax. ceaster, city.

(i) A-Sax. dcBl, Scand. dal, dale; (2) A.-Sax.

dtel, Scand. del, deal, allotment, (i) A.-Sax. ig (ly), O. Nor. ey, island, low

riparian tract ; (2) A.-Sax. ed, O. Nor. a, river. A.-Sax. gcers, grass, (l) A.-Sax. geat, gate, passage, road ; (2) A.-Sax.

gdt, goat.

(i) A.-Sax. qraf, gxo\& ; (2) A.-Sax. grce/, O. Nor. grof (Dan. grav, Swed. graf), trench, ditch.

(i) A.-Sax. heath, O. Nor. hall{r), slope, hill,

corner ; (2) A.-Sax. heatl, hall, (i) A.-Sax. hdin, home; (2) A.-Sax. ham{m),

piece of land, often hemmed in by the bend of

a river.

i8

GLOSSARY OF PLACE-NAME COMPONENTS

Har

Hard

Haigh Hay

HOGH

Hoo Hough

HOLM-E

HULME

Holt

Hurst

Ing

Kirk

Nether Over

Pool

POUL SCOUGH

Shaw Shot

Stan

Stead -x-teth

SUT

Thing Thorpe) Trop /

(i) A. -Sax. kara, Scand. /lare, hare (combined with grove, wood, field, ley, etc.); (2) A.-Sax. Adr, O. Nor. Aarr, grey ; (3) O. Nor. /lar, high ; (4)? A. Sax. kere, O. Nor. /lerr, military.

A.-Sax. heorde, herd ; occasionally A. Sax. per- sonal name Heard = brave.

A.-Sax. hege, haga, hedge, enclosure.

A.-Sax. ho, hSh, hough, heel formed like a heel.

point of land Nor. holm, river-island, low

A.-Sax, and O. riparian land.

A.-Sax. holt, copse, wood.

A.-Sax. hyrst, copse, wood.

A.-Sax. suffix denoting 'son of,' in pi. 'descend- ants of.'

O. Nor. kirkja (Dan. -Norw. kirke, Swed. kyrka), A.-Sax. circe, church.

A.-Sax. ledh, meadow, pasture.

A. -Sax. hl(£W, (burial) mound, hill. O. Nor, niel[r), sandhill, sandbank. O. Nor. ties (Dan. -Norw. ties, Swed. tids),

A.-Sax. ticess, headland, promontory. A.-Sax. tieother, lower, (i) A.-Sax. ofer, upper ; (2) A.-Sax. 6fer, bank,

shore.

A.-Sax. p6l, O. Nor. poll{r), pool.

O.-Nor. sk6gr (Swed. skog, Dan. -Norw. skov), A.-Sax. sceaga, 'grove,' 'wood.'

A.-Sax. sceot, scedf, angle or corner (of land), field ; sometimes corruption of A.-Sax. s-holt, the s being the genitive or possessive suffix of the first element of the name ; holt = wood.

A.-Sax. Stan, stone, rock ; castle. Bosworth and Toller {A.-Sax. Dict.)have collected the follow- ing significations of stdn : i. stone as a material, ii. a stone, iia. a stone for building, iib. a stone, natural or wrought, serving as a mark, iic. an image of stone, iid. a stone to which worship is paid, iie. a stone containing metal, iif. a precious stone, iig. stone (med.), iii. a rock.

O. Nor. sta(h{r), A.-Sax. stede, place.

A.-Sax. siith, south.

O. Nor. thittg, council, parliament.

O. Nor. thorp, farm, hamlet, village.

GLOSSARY OF PLACE-NAME COMPONENTS

19

Thwaite Ton

Wal (prefix)

Wall (suffix) War

WlCH\ WlCKJ WORTH-Y

O. Nor. tkveit, piece of land, clearing.

A. -Sax. tiSn, enclosure, farmstead, manor, village ; mod. town. (Also found in Icelandic.)

(i) A.-Sax w^fl//, wall; (2) A. -Sax. twa/^/, forest, wood.

O. Nor. vollr, field.

Most commonly prob. A. -Sax. 7ver {O. Nor. ver or vorr), weir, dam ; fishing-place ; (?) landing- place.

(i) A. -Sax. zvic, habitation, station, creek, bay; (2) O. Nor. vik, creek, bay.

A. -Sax. weorihig, farmstead, estate.

DOMESDAY ENTRIES.

HUNDRED OF WEST DERBY.

Domesday. Achetun Acrer Alretune Bartune Eoltelai Chenulveslei Cherchebi Chirchedele Cildeuuelle Crosebi Daltone Derbei Einulvesdel Erengermeles Esmedune Fornebei Herleshala \ Heleshale j Hinne Hitune Holland Holand Latune Leiate

Modern. Aughton. Altcar. AUerton. Barton. Bootle. Knowsley. Kirkby. Kirkdale. Childwall. Crosby. Dalton.

(West) Derby. 1 Ainsdale.

Ravensmeols. [pool.

Smithdown (Lane), Liver- Formby.

Halsall.

Ince (Blundell)

Huyton.

(Up) Holland.

(Down) Holland.

Lathom.

Lydiate.

^ Domesday records that there belonged to the manor of Derbei six berewicks, or subordinate manors, which it does not specify. These are presumed to have been Litherpool or Liverpool, Everton, Thing- wall, Garston, part of Wavertree, and Great Crosby.

DOMESDA Y ENTRIES

21

Domesday. Modern.
Liderlant ) Literland )	Litherland.
Magele	Maghull.
Mele	(North) Meols.
Melinge	Melling.
Marsha	Mersey.
Neweton	Newton.
Otegrimele	\ Orr^ll
Otringemele j --—
Rabil	Roby.
Sextone	Sefton.
Schelmeresdele Skelmersdale.
Spec	Speke.
Stochestede	Toxteth.
Torboc	Tarbock.
Torentun	Thornton.
Ulventune	Woolton.
Uvetone
Waletone	Walton (on-the-Hill)
Walintune	AVarrington,
Wavretreu	Wavertree.
	HUNDRED OF WIRRAL.
Domesday. Modern.
Bernestone	Barnston.
Blachehol	Blacon.
Calders	Caldy.
Capeles	Capenhurst.
Chenoterie	Noctorum.
Crostone	Croughton.
Estham	Kastham.
Eswelle	Heswall.
Gaitone	Gayton.
Gravesberie	Greasby,
Haregrave	Hargrave.
Hotone	Hooton.
Landechene	Landican.
Lestone	Leighton.
Levetesham	Ledsham.

22

DOMESDA Y ENTRIES

Domesday.	Modern.
Melas	Meols.
Molintone	Mollington.
Nesse	Ness, or Nesse.
Nestone	Neston.
Optone	Upton.
Pol	(Over) Pool
Pontone	Poulton (Lancelyn).
Potintone	Puddington.
Prestune	Prenton.
Rabie	Raby.
Salhale	Saughall, Soughall.
Sotowiche	Shotwick.
Stanei	Stanney.
Stortone	Storeton.
Sudtone	Sutton.
Tinguelle	Thingwall.
Torintone	Thornton (Hough).
Turstanetone	Thurstaston.
Walea	Wallasey.

LINGUISTIC ABBREVIATIONS, Etc.

A.-S., A. -Sax.		Anglo-Saxon or Old English.
Dan.	:rz	Modern Danish.
Dan.-Norw.	=	Dano-Norwegian.
Du., Dut.	=	Dutch.
E. Eng.	=	Early English.
Fr.	=	French.
Fris.	z=	Frisian.
Gael.	=	Gaelic.
Ger.	r=	German, i.e., New High German.
Goth.	=	Gothic.
Gr.	=	Greek.
Ir.	=	Irish.
Lat.	^	Latin.
M.E., Mdle. Eng.	=:	Middle English (i2th to 15th cent.)
Mod. Eng.	=	Modern English.
Nor. Eng.	=	Northern English.
O. Eng.	=	Old English.
O. Fr.	=:	Old French.
0. Fris.	^	Old Frisian.
O. H. Ger.	=	Old High German.
O. Nor.	=	Old Norse or Icelandic.
O. Sax.	r^	Old Saxon.
Scand.	=	Scandinavian, ?.£., common to t Scandinavian languages.
Scot.	n;	Scottish.
Swed.	rr	Swedish.
Wei.	=;	Welsh.

the

A. -Sax. and O. Nor. S, i> = th.

LIVERPOOL.

With the possible exception of London, the name of no EngHsh town has excited so much discussion, and been the cause of so much philological brain-cudgelling, as has that of Liverpool. As early as the latter half of last century, the magazines began to take up the tangled etymological thread which had been but little more than touched in passing by the chroniclers of the i6th and 17th centuries. At a later period the columns of Notes and Queries were from time to time, and are still occasionally, opened to expressions of opmion upon this evergreen question of the origin of the first two syllables of ' Liverpool.'

Let us glance at the earliest recorded spellings of the name. The most ancient deed in which it is found belongs to the time of Richard I (11 89-1 199): the form here is Leverpol. In King John's charter, 1207, we have Liver- pul ;^ in that of Henry III., 1229, Levereptil ; but in the Testa de Nevill (fol. 371), in a part which bears distinct evidence of having been written in the reign of King John, we find the form Litherpol. An analysis which I have made of the spellings of the name of the city in 36 of the earliest (13th cent.) Moore charters and deeds relating to Liver- pool- gives the following result Leverpol 1, Liverpiil i, Liverpo/ 2, Liverpool 8, while Lyverpol occurs no fewer

' Livcrpiil K also the spelling in the Pipe Roll of 10 John (1209), membrane 10.

- The Moore Charters and Documents Relating to Liverpool : Report to the Finance and Estate Committee of the City Council ; Part I., by Sir J. A. Picton, 1889. I am indebted for a copy of this first part of the Report (the only part so far printed) to Mr. T. N. Morton, Clerk of the Records, Liverpool.

LIVERPOOL 25

than 2)2) times. In the State records of the early part of the succeeding century the speUings are almost uniformly with V. Thus in the Close Rolls we have the following forms : 1314, Lyverpol ; 1323 and 1328, Liverpol. In the Open Rolls: 1330, Liverpool (as to-day); 1333, Liver- pull dind Liverpole ; xTyTi"], Leverpol. In Rymer's Foedera : 1323, Liverpol; 1327, Lyverpol ; 1336, Liverpull. And the V form continued to be by far the more usual until the name definitively settled down into its present spelling ; among the most notable exceptions to the v rule (apart from the instance already mentioned) being the Letherpole of the Ministers' Accounts, Duchy of Lancaster, 1509 •} the Lither- pole of the Calendar to Pleadings, Duchy of Lancaster, i. 183 (1547) ; the Litherpole and Z///^^^C(?/6' of Camden ;- the Litherpoole of a miscellaneous record of the Duchy of Lancaster, dated 1640-41 f and the Litherpool oi Baxter. ■*

For Camden's "in Saxon Liferpole" there is not the slightest authority, the earliest existing document in which the name occurs belonging, as we have seen, to the end of the 1 2th century, although there is little doubt that Lither- pool or Liverpool was one of the six unspecified berewicks mentioned in Domesday as being attached to the manor of

^ Selby's Lane, and Chesh. Records Preserved in the Public Record Office, London (Lane, and Chesh. Record Soc), 1882-83, i. 100.

- In the first edition of Camden's Britannia (1586, p. 429) the passage relative to Liverpool ran : ". . . ubi Litherpole floret, vulg6 Lirpole, a diffusa paludis in modum aqua, ut opinio est, nominatus, qui commodissimus et usitatissimus est in Hyberniam traiectus, elegatia et frequentia, quam antiquitate celebrior." In the edition of 1607 (p. 612) this paragraph is modified as follows : " . . . ubi Lither- poole patet, .Saxonice Liferpole, vulgo Lirpoole," etc. Gibson's trans- lation (17/2, ii. 146) runs "... Liverpool, in Saxon Liferpole, commonly Lirpool ; so called (as it is thought) from the water spread there like a fen. It is the most convenient and usual place for setting sail into Ireland, but not so eminent for antiquity as for neatness and populousness." Gough translated it (1789, iii. 12S) : "... Lither- poole, Saxon Liferpole, commonly called Lirpoole, from a water extended like a pool, according to the common opinion, where is the most convenient and most frequented passage to Ireland ; a town more famous for its beauty and populousness than its antiquity."

^ Selby's Lane, and Chesh. Records, etc., i. 33.

■* Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum, 2nd ed., 1733, p. 213 : — "... hodiernum vero loco nomen Lither-pool est, sive Pigra palus'' (The present name is really derived from the situation — Litherpool or ' sluggish water ').

26 LIVERPOOL

West Derby (Derbei). Of the other i6th century chroniclers Harrison has :^ " Lirepook, or as it was called of old, Liverpoole haven " ; and Leland -?■ " Lyrpole alias Lyver- poole."

Notwithstanding the much greater frequency of the spelling with v compared with that with th (the forms without either are, of course, merely slurred renderings of the proper name), it is impossible to say with certainty, from the available historical evidence, whether the original form of the name of the city had liver or lever,^ lither or lether ; but the contiguity of Litherland would almost seem to indicate that the spelling with /// was the primitive one.

In an article in the Supplement to the Lady's Magazine for 1774 (p. 676), it is asserted that "the right spelling" of the name of the Mersey port " is ' Leverpool ' " ; but the article is simply based on Enfield's ' I>everpool,'^ which was published in that year. Enfield offers no definite etymology of the name ; he merely refers (chap. I.) to the hypothetical derivations from the fabulous liver bird, or the seaweed liver, or the Lever family, without manifesting a preference for any one of them. In the Gentlemari s Magazine, vol. Ixxxvii. (1817), pt. ii., p. 508, Mr. W. R. Whatton, of Manchester, traces the etymology to a conjectural A.-Sax. Lifiepul, which he translates as ' still or quiet lake ' ; and the elder Baines'' seemed inclined to agree with his coadjutor hereon. But the A.-Sax. /?«<' is the Mod. Eng. ' lithe,' which would give ' Lithe-pool,' instead of Litherpool.

Enfield's successor, Troughton, experienced not the least difficulty in fixing the etymology of ' Liverpool ' — or ' Lither- pool,' as he preferred to spell the name. "The word iither,^' he says,*^ " signifies lower. Litherpool means Lower Pool. Hence the name of the village Litherland, or ' Lower Land ' ; and of a passage, yet called Litherland Alley, in the neigh-

1 Holinshed's Chronicles, Hooker's ed., 1587, i. 84^.

* Itinerary, Ilearne's 2nd ed., 1744, vii. 44.

^ The student should not overlook the correspondence entitled " Leverpool or Liverpool ?" which was initiated in the Liverpool Courier on June 7, 1889, by Mr. Ellis Lever.

'' An Essay towards the History of Leverpool, based on Mr. George Perry's papers, by William Enfield, 1774.

^ Hist, of Lancashire, 1836, iiii. 55.

^ Hist, of Liverpool, 18 10, p. 20.

LIVERPOOL 27

bourhood of Pool Lane." The A. -Sax. word for ' lower,' however, is neothor, ' nether.'

The younger Baines worked on somewhat different lin- guistic lines. He was inclined to think that the Z/der and Zt'fer of Domesday,^ the Ze7'er of the reign of Richard T., the Lt'f/ier of Testa de Nevill, etc., were " all originally the same word, and that they are derived, as has been suggested, from the old Gothic word h'de or /if/ie, the sea, or from some of the words formed from it : as /id and /ifer, ' a ship '; ////le, 'a fleet of ships'; lithesnian, *a seaman.'"- But, as Professor Skeat points out, Gothic has no such word as liiSe or lithe, and it does not mean ' the sea ' in Anglo- Saxon. It is an adjective, and signifies * gentle ' — Mod. Eng. lithe, 'pliant.' Lid, ' a ship,' is from a different root, and has nothing to do with it.

The latest historian of Liverpool, Sir J. A. Picton, found the question altogether too knotty for solution, although he possessed infinitely greater philological knowledge than any of the preceding historians of Liverpool. " The name of Liverpool," he observes, " is even more enigmatical than the seal, and has hitherto baffled all investigators in endeavouring satisfactorily to account for its origin. That the name was originally applied to the water rather than to the land appears to be agreed upon all hands. The embouchure of the small stream was called the Pool down to the time of the formation of the Old Dock."^ Sir James afterwards pointed out that the notion of giving