Braddon One-Name Study

(Click on picture to enlarge) Mary Braddon's first success: Lady Audley's Secret

Braddon
One-Name Study

Topics

About the Braddon One-Name Study
Variants
Origin of the surname
Historical occurrences
Frequency of the name
Distribution of the name
Data
Links
Contact Details

About the Braddon One-Name Study

The Braddon one-name study has developed from my research over many years of 'my' branch of the Braddons. As the name is relatively unusual, I noted down instances of its occurrence. Later, as I seemed to have reached back as far as was achievable, I became interested in other Braddon groupings and started to plot their linkages and mobility, both geographical and social. I was intrigued to explore whether they would all trace back to one or even a few families in the sixteenth century.

Variants

'Braddon' was established as an identifiable standard spelling in the seventeenth century, although there have been occasional mis-spellings or (should I say?) alternative spellings as 'Bradon' or 'Bradden'.

'Braden', however, is NOT a variant but a different name with a different origin and meaning (brad dene = broad wood).

Origin of the surname

The name 'Braddon' probably derives from the place name Braddon (Old English for 'broad hill') in the parishes of Buckland Brewer and Ashwater in Northwest Devon and, possibly, also the Braddon Hills overlooking Torbay.

There were presumably also other 'braddons/broad hills' that have disappeared from the map.

Historical occurrences

The first reference to a Braddon that I have found is William de Braddon in a document dated 1330. Most lived, generation after generation, in their home villages as landowners or agricultural labourers, farmers or clergymen. But some achieved prominence outside their home communities, including:

William and John Braddon from Topsham, Devon, who in the 1580s were sailing across the Atlantic to fish off Newfoundland
William Braddon the Civil War commander and Republican Member of Parliament from St Gennys, Cornwall
His son Laurence, who was imprisoned in 1683 for rashly challenging King Charles II over the circumstances of the death of the Earl of Essex
Nicholas Braddon from Colyton, Devon, who in 1685 was sent into slavery in America as punishment for joining Monmouth's rebellion
Mary Elizabeth Braddon, the best-selling Victorian novelist
Her brother Sir Edward Nicholas Coventry Braddon, the first Premier of Tasmania
Russell Braddon, the twentieth century author

Frequency of the name

While not all households appear in telephone directories, there are 84 Braddon entries in the current UK directories.

In the 1901 UK census there were 288 Braddons, in 1891 276, in 1881 , in 1871 208, in 1861 170 and in 1851 178.

Distribution of the name

Over half the current telephone directory entries referred to above are in the South West of England. As you move back through the nineteenth century censuses and then through earlier parish register entries and such documents as wills, the concentration of 'Braddon' references in Devon, and to a lesser extent Cornwall, intensifies.

Data

Among the data I have gathered are the full references to 'Braddons' in the UK censuses from 1851-1901 (and partially 1841), all Braddon references in the GRO Indexes of Births, Marriage and Deaths from 1837-1939 and thousands of other references from miscellaneous sources.

My interest is not in the raw data itself, however, but in the assembling of 'family groupings' and linking them to others.

Links

Braddon Family History website www.braddonfamily.org.uk

Contact details

For further information, contact:

Mr David H Barton
The Willows,
5 Rockley Avenue,
Radcliffe on Trent,
Nottinghamshire
NG12 1AR
UNITED KINGDOM
E-mail:

This page last updated 13 January 2012.