Strudwick

This is an English medieval derivative residential name for one who formerly lived at the "lost" village of Strudgewick in the parish of Kiedford, Sussex. The name translates as "the farm (wic) on the marsh land (strod)" and it is believed that this village which appeared in various early spellings including Strodwick and Strodewick, was cleared for sheep farming in the 17th Century. Some seven thousand such sites are believed to have disappeared since the 13th Century, mainly as a result of agricultural clearance, but in a minority of cases, from plague or civil war. When villages were cleared the dispossessed inhabitants fled to the nearest city and, if possible, London, certainly from the early part of the 17th Century the name is widely recorded here. In its home county of Sussex the recordings are rare, but include William Strudwiecke, who married Margerv Colebroke at Midhurst on October 28th 1594, and Mary Strudwych, christened at Terwick, Sussex, on December 29th 1605. An early London recording was that of Henry Strudwick, a witness at the church of St. Dunstan's, Stepney, on December 13th 1643, in the reign of Charles 1 (The Martyr). The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Elizabeth Strudwike, which was dated June 15th 1584, marriage to Nicholas Brushant, at Harting, Sussex, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, known as "Good Queen Bess", 1558 - 1603. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.