This article was originally published in the July 2000 edition of Soul Search, the journal of The Sole Society.

In the course of exploring the origins of the SEWELLs of Northumberland and Durham I have come across surnames such as SHIELD and SHEWELL (see Soul Search Vol 2 No 4). Although Geoff Sewell included SHEWELL amongst the SEWELL variants, quite naturally he did not include SHIELD (Soul Search Vol 1 No 5).

To check whether there was a possible reference to my earliest likely ancestor, Robert SEWELL (c.1685) of Simonburn, I have taken another look at the Northumberland Hearth Tax List of 1664. As I expected there were no SEWELLs, but I did find the following entries for Allendale, which is sufficiently close to Simonburn to prompt further enquiry:

In an article entitled The SHIELDS of Allendale (Northumberland & Durham FH Journal - Autumn 1990) I found the following:

When I went back to the Northumberland Muster Roll of 1538 (a valuable early list of names, but excluding Newcastle) I found no SHIELDs but there were eighteen SCHELLs in Allendale, including Cutbert, Hewe, Robert and John. Although there were no SHEWELLs, one Allendale resident was surnamed HEWLL. One should note that the SCHELLs also appear in the Muster Roll in other parts of the county.

In Allendale, it seems that the SCHELLs of 1538 were recorded later as SHIELDs and in 1664 as SHEWELLs. The change to SHEWELL apparently did not last, for by the 18^th century the IGI includes only SHIELDs in Allendale, and in the 1881 Census (91 names) these are given a final ‘S’.

SCHELL and SHIELD are names that are said to be derived from schele or shiel, a shieling being the name given by the Scots to a shepherd’s hut. SHIELD, SHIELDS and SHELL are surnames which are still current in Northumbria, and there are place-names such as North and South Shields.

Although SHEWELL occurs nowhere else in the 1664 Northumberland Hearth Tax List, the IGI (1988 version) for Northumberland and Durham contains 41 SHEWELL events dating between 1588 and 1819. Most relate to the Tyne area in the vicinity of Newcastle and none to Allendale. This would be the end of the story but some IGI records indicating some possible confusion between the names SHEWELL and SEWELL within what appears to be the same family:

The SHEWELLs seem to have disappeared from Northumberland in the early 19^th century. This is confirmed by the 1881 Census - the fourteen residing in County Durham in 1881 were born elsewhere. Despite the large numbers of SEWELLs in Cumberland, the county does not appear to be SHEWELL stronghold - there are only three in the IGI and none at all in 1881 Census.

The greatest concentration of SHEWELLs was in Gloucestershire, where they composed about a third of all those listed in the IGI (total of 1128). Shewel, incidentally, is an obsolete term for a scarecrow and amongst the Gloucestershire place-names one finds Shewell Barn, Shewell Coppice, Shewell Wood and Shewell Hill. In 1881, the Census for the county contains 59 SHEWELLs, but not all were born there and none can be found in current telephone directories.

The Gloucestershire SEWELLs form only about an eighth of all the SHEWELL and SEWELL entries in the IGI for the county. Just as the SHEWELLs diminished in numbers so did the SEWELLs, with only three appearing in the 1881 Census who were born in the Gloucestershire.

Once again a cursory study of the IGI reveals some possible mixing of SEWELL and SHEWELL:

I need to point out that nearly a quarter of all the Gloucestershire SHEWELLs were located in the village of Bisley, and therefore I would not wish to put too much weight on what might be just a series of coincidences.

Nevertheless, further research into the SEWELLs and the SHEWELLs of Bisley might be interesting, particularly since there is a brass dated 1515 in All Saints church dedicated to Kateryn SEWELL (see Buildings of England – Gloucestershire: The Cotswolds).

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