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Pearsall Surname Project
Number of Pearsalls By Location
Maps by Family
Surname
History and Genealogy
of the Pearsall Family in England
and America:
Volume I
Front Cover
Inside Front Cover
The Motive
Thanks
Illustrations
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Appendix I
Volume II
Volume III
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the compounding of
words to make the name Peshale the second
element of the king's name was lost in the long drawl of the a's, which represent the sound of the first element
of Peshale with its peculiar sound or drawl of
r. The loss of the last element of a man's name in the final form of a
community name is a common incident of the history of geographical names.
Many examples could be given but one will do. A hermit founded in
Northumberland, about 670, a little religious house around which a little
town grew up which as years went by became Botulf's
town, and this as the centuries passed became Boston, which evidences a greater
change than in the change of Peada's shield to Peshale. [Making of England, by John Richard
Green, page 341.]
The second
element of the word is shale-and it has puzzled several of the
investigators. Dr. Parshall says the second
syllable is health, an Anglo-Saxon word, the exact meaning of which is
still doubtful, it is very common in place names shortening to hale, ale
and all, equivalent of hiding place, mans abode, house or hall, and he
therefore reaches the conclusion that the manor was formerly the property
of an Anglo-Saxon chief Parva or Pea, the Peacock (it was in fact Peada's shield) and that his manor received the name
of Peashealth or Pea-shale; a conclusion which
is utterly destructive not only to the primary contention of the
distinguished and learned doctor that the first element of his name is
Par (shall), but it also completely destroys the obvious division of the
elements of this word, as the s is an essential part of the second
element, to change which it is evident that thereby the structure of the
name would be entirely altered. The old English word Pea, meaning a pea
fowl, was sounded as pg-like the legume common to our gardens today-e.g. Gilded als the fethers of pea, [Child's Ballads 1. 274] It may be
that he really intended to refer to a form of the old Gaelic terminal Airigh, a shieling, that is
a temporary shelter, which would give exactly the right value of this
second element of the name. Moreover, Dr. Johnston in his Place Names of
England and Wales, London 1915, page 52, places the value of Heall, as a palace, court, a royal residence, hence a
mansion or a hall, a permanent and pretentious house, a meaning utterly
impossible to apply to the manor of Peshale.
While Henry Harrison says the last element is the equivalent of old
English hyll or Middle English hull, meaning a
hill, which is very interesting as this is not a hill place, but a low
meadow-like manor in the bend of a stream; nor was it the place of a hall
or castle such as would be long remembered as the dwelling place of the
lord of a manor. That this is so is proven by the fact that it was
entirely overlooked by the assessors in the time of the Domesday survey. It will be noticed that these
scholars treat the s as being the possessive of the first element, which
makes it very evident that they were puzzled as to the derivation of the
second element, and therefore they endeavored to change this part of the
name so as to bring it within the terms of a common element whose meaning
they understood.
The truth is
that shale is a very rare termination for a place name and is not
generally found in England.
In fact it seems to be almost entirely peculiar to this Shropshire-Staffordshire-border locality. So rare is
the termination that those who have examined it are content to give it
the meaning it has at the place where it is used, e.g., a hut, or a hut
on the side of a hill pasture, or a fisherman's hut at
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