The Shield Name the Shield Family in Pamington, Ashchurch
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The Shield Name The Shield family have been living in Gloucestershire for at least 500 years. For a large part of that time the name Shield seems to have been interchangeable with the name Shill. The meaning of these names is unclear. In England the name Shield comes either from the occupational name for an armourer from the Middle English scheld meaning a shield, or from the Middle English schele meaning a hut, shed or shelter used by herdsmen as temporary accommodation in summer pastures. The name Shill, which seems to be peculiar to Gloucestershire, is unexplained. In Ireland the name Shield comes from the anglicised form of Ó Siadhail meaning a descendant of Siadhal . The name Shields, with the final ‘s’ is a habitational name for someone coming from North or South Shields in Northern England. The name Shield in Gloucestershire was also found with many alternative spellings. I have come across Shield, Sheild, Sheilde, Shelde, Sheyld, Shelyde, Shild, Shilde, Shyld and Shylde. There are rumours handed down in various branches of the family that the Shield family arrived in Gloucestershire from further north. In one case there is a story that two Shield brothers walked down from Scotland to Bristol. In another, the story is that a Shield farmer drove his cattle down from the north of England to Bristol for sale in the market, started to walk back, stopped in a pub and liked it so much that he used the money from the sale of the cattle to buy the pub and thus remained in Gloucestershire. We will probably never know The Shield family in Pamington, Ashchurch Ashchurch is a village two miles north-east of Tewkesbury lying on the Worcestershire border and with the river Carron running through the parish and Pamington is a hamlet half a mile south-east of Ashchurch. With the coming of the railway a station was built at Ashchurch, and it is now part of the suburbs of Tewkesbury. The first record of our family in Gloucestershire was Henry Shyld of Pamington who appeared in the Muster Rolls of Gloucestershire in 1539. This was a list of able-bodied men between the ages of 16 and 60 who could be called upon to serve in the local Militia in times of trouble. Henry wrote his will on 8th December 1569: he left his daughter Emele £13.6.8d and his daughter Elizabeth £10, both to be “payd at the daye of her marriage”. He also asked that “my Wyff Jane and John my boy doo kepe my daughters honestly in apparell”. He left the rest of his estate to his son John. One of the witnesses to his will was a Rychard Shelde. Henry’s wife Jane wrote her will a year later in 1570 but it was not proved until 1580. She left most of her estate to her son John, but mentioned his wife Elinor and their children John, Henry, Elizabeth and William to whom she left 6s 8d each. Henry also had an unmarried sister Joane, who died in 1561 leaving her brother “my cow & my calfe” and “to my sister his wife a payer of sheetes”. An interesting fact about the family at this time is that they were known as James alias Shyld. Both Henry and his sister Joane wrote their wills in the name of James. Henry’s wife Jane called herself Jane James otherwise Shild and her son John and her grandchildren as James alias Shild. Their son John, in his will, called himself John James alias Shyld and his children James alias Shilde. By the next generation the name of James seems to have disappeared and the family were simply known as Shield. The reason for the alias is not known. It may have had something to do with inheritance of land or property or it may have been the result of an illegitimate offspring at some time with the child taking the names of both the father and the mother. Again we will probably never know. Main Street, Pamington Henry and Jane’s son John James alias Shyld and his wife Elinor had nine children between 1560 and 1578 who were baptised in the parish church at Ashchurch. These were John, Henry, Elizabeth, William, Elinor, Margaret, Richard, Ann and Mary. Most were baptised as Shylde, some as Shilde, one as James or Shilde, and one as Shylde or James. St. Nicholas, Ashchurch John James alias Shyld wrote his will in 1581. He was obviously quite a wealthy man as after leaving 6s 8d for the reparations of the church, 6s 8d to the poor of the parish of Ashchurch and 6s 8d towards the “mending of the highwaye where most neede is” He left £40 and various items of furniture to his wife Elinor, £60 to his son Henry, £40 to his son Richard, £40 each to his daughters Elizabeth and Mary and £20 to his daughter Margaret. His son Richard also received his freehold land at Whomedone (probably Homedown Farm which still exists today) and his eldest son John received all the rest and residue of his estate. (£60 in 1581 was worth about £11,350 in 2006.) John and Elinor’s Children John and Elinor’s first child and eldest son, also John, was born in Pamington about 1560 and married Margaret Jordon, a local girl, on 7th June 1585 at Ashchurch. He and Margaret had nine children, all baptised at Ashchurch as Shilde or Shylde (the alias James seems to have mostly disappeared by this time). In the 1608 Muster Roll John appeared as John Sheild senior, a husbandman aged about 40, living at Pamington, tall and able to serve as a pikeman. (His son John also appeared as John Sheild junior, aged about 20, short and fit to serve with a calyver.) John died in about 1613 and wrote his will as John Shild. Nothing is known of John & Elinor’s sons William and Richard except that William had a son, also William, baptised at Ashchurch in 1596 as William James or Shilde. John and Elinor’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, baptised in 1567 as Elizabeth Shylde, married a local man, John Young, and produced at least three daughters. Their next daughter, Elinor, born about 1570, was married as Elinor Shylde or James to John Dawby at Ashchurch in 1593 and had one daughter, Elizabeth. Their third daughter, baptised in 1573 at Ashchurch as Margaret Shilde, married William Rayer at Ashchurch in1594 and produced five children, all baptised at Ashchurch. Their fourth daughter, baptised at Ashchurch in 1578 as Ann Shilde, married Edward Millicheap at Tewkesbury in 1599 as Ann Shield. Ann and Edward had six children, all baptised at Tewkesbury. Their fifth daughter, Mary, born about 1580, married Ralf Gynes in 1615 at Ashchurch and had at least one son, Edward, baptised at Ashchurch in 1621. Early Shields in Tytherington Henry Shield of Tytherington Henry, the second son of John and Elinor was baptised at Ashchurch in January 1566 and died in Tytherington in 1609 so he was the member of the family responsible for bringing the Shield family south to Tytherington. He married Edith Higgins, a widow. Edith had been previously married to William Higgins and had seven children by him. William was quite a prosperous farmer and when he died in Ashchurch in 1593 he left land both at Stidcote, Tytherington and at Cromhall Lygon in south Gloucestershire. He left the lease of his land at Stidcote to his widow Edith. along with furniture and other “implements of household use in and about the same house.” It seems likely that when Henry Shield married Edith in about 1594 they moved down to Tytherington. Henry and Edith had two sons together, Henry, who was baptised in Ashchurch in 1595, and William. It is not known when Henry and Edith moved to Tytherington. The earliest record we have of Henry in Tytherington was in 1607 when he acted as overseer to the will of William Browne, also of Stidcote. He was noted in the will both as Henry Shilde and as Henry Sheilde. The following year another Muster Roll was drawn up containing "The names and Surnames of all the able and sufficient men in body fitt for his Ma'ties service in the warrs within the City of Gloucester and the Inshire of the same, wherein are contayned the City of Glouc' and the Hundreds of Dudstone and Barton Regis, with their ages, personable Statures and Armours viewed by the Right honorable Henry Lord Berkley Lord Lieutenant of the said City and the County thereof by direction from his Ma'tie in the month of September, 1608.” Henry’s name appears as Henry Sheild, yeoman of Tytherington, aged about 40, “of the tallest stature fitt to make a pykeman” and “hath one musket.” Henry Shield made his will in 1608 as Henrie Sheild of Tytherington. He asked that his body should be buried at either Ashchurch or Tytherington. He left land at Stidcote to his wife Edith and after her death to his elder son Henry; he also left a house at Portbury in Somerset to Henry and some land which he still had in Pamington to his younger son William. William also received some yearlings, some sheep and his best young mare. As both his sons were young at the time, he also asked that “my sonnes Henrie and William shall be maintained by my wyfe with sufficient meate drinke learning & apparrell fitt for theyre callinge untill they cum to the adge of 21 yeares.” He also left legacies to his stepson Rowland Higgins, his stepdaughter Joan Higgins and the daughter of his stepson Nicholas, Susannah Higgins.