Frogley, Cockhead and Crutch: A Celebration of Humorous Names from Oxfordshire's History

By Paul Sullivan

Willy Cockhead had to live with his name. So too did countless others lumbered with ridiculous names, safely hidden away in Oxford's records and censuses—until now. And what names! Some rhyme (Dick Thick), a few are odd (Silly Waters), others you have to say out loud (Rhoda Turtle) and some are just groan-worthy (Blenda Belcher). Uncovered by local author Paul Sullivan and accompanied with strange-but-true anecdotes, this entertaining volume of baffling, ill-thought-out and just plain rude examples champions the people and places of Oxfordshire that got lumbered with the daftest names.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Jun 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9780750964692

Paul Sullivan

Paul Sullivan writes the “Wealth Matters” column for The New York Times and is the author of The Thin Green Line: The Money Secrets of the Super Wealthy and Clutch: Why Some People Excel Under Pressure and Others Don’t. His articles have appeared in Fortune, Conde Nast Portfolio, The International Herald Tribune, Barron’s, The Boston Globe, and Food & Wine. From 2000 to 2006, he was a reporter, editor, and columnist at the Financial Times. A graduate of Trinity College and the University of Chicago, Sullivan lives in Fairfield County, Connecticut.

Book preview

1

CRAZY NAMES

Some people think it’s crazy to have children. Some parents agree, and express their feelings in the names of their

beloved offspring.

Marmaduke Roland Pratt was father of Marmaduke Roland Pratt (1851–1915) and grandfather of … yes, you guessed it … Marmaduke Roland Pratt (1881–1935). The second of these Marmaduke Pratts, a grocer, was chief witness in the trial of Marian Louise Grainger at the Oxford Assizes in 1877. Grainger was accused of murdering her husband James by drunkenly wounding him by stabbing him in the left buttock with a stiletto, or a knife, or by throwing a tumbler at him. No one seemed quite sure which. Marian claimed her drunken husband had accidentally stabbed himself with a knife during a quarrel. Whatever happened, the wound festered and the man died. Marmaduke Pratt, the couple’s son-in-law, explained how Marian had asked him to visit during James’ decline, asking him if he thought her husband would die. ‘I have no doubt about it,’ said Pratt, to which Marian responded, ‘Good God, whatever shall I do? God only knows how I shall ever get over it. How could I have done such a thing? But I never did it!’ In summing up, the judge commented that Pratt clearly ‘had no very kindly feelings towards his mother-in-law’. Squinting through the drunken haze, the jury delivered a verdict of not guilty. (Jackson’s Oxford Journal, Saturday, 7 July 1877)

2

DOCTOR, DOCTOR … !

All manner of ailments and medical symptoms await us in the pages of Oxfordshire’s surgery of surnames.

John Payne opened Payne & Son silversmiths and jewellers in Wallingford in 1790, with other branches later opening in Abingdon and Banbury. George Septimus Payne inherited the Abingdon shop in 1874, moving it to No. 131 High Street, Oxford in 1889. Formerly occupied by James Sheard, a watchmaker, the Oxford premises are surmounted by a lifesize, white Great Dane, holding a giant fob watch in its mouth, as a pun on ‘watch dog’. The watch used to have painted hands; but these were painted over in the 1960s to put an end to the constant stream of people calling into the shop to report that the clock was telling the wrong time.

3

TOO LATE FOR

THE DOCTOR …

Sometimes the symptoms take their natural course, and there is no hope for the following victims.

Poor George Graves, aged 14, inmate of Abingdon Union Workhouse, died on 3 February 1842. The cause of death was recorded as ‘inflammation of the brain, and not from external injuries’.

4

IT’S ALL A STATE OF MIND

Many names paint a picture of the human condition – how we’re feeling, how we look upon the world around us, how we’re looked upon by others. Listed together, they present an intriguing scene worthy of a Hogarth print or, bringing the canvas forward a couple of centuries, a comic strip in The Beano or Viz.