The Spalding Memorial was published in 1896 by Charles Warren Spalding, in dedication to the numerous family members whose names are Spalding, also spelled Spaulding. An earlier version, of the Spalding Memorial was published by Samuel Spalding in 1872. The following excerpt is taken directly from the Introduction of the Spalding Memorial (1896), recently republished in 1996.
The name Spalding, as a patronymic, appears quite early in English history. It was unquestionably derived from the town of Spalding, in Lincolnshire, England, but how the name of the town originated is a matter of conjecture, possibly from the tribal name Spaldas, which may have been left by the Romans when they abandoned the country.
There are many traces existing in the neighborhood of Spalding, of the stupendous works executed by the Romans, in the various embankments for keeping out the sea, which still remain as monuments of their industry and power. In the time of the Saxons, it flourished under the Mercian princes, and its particular lords and patrons were their kinsmen, some of whom were deputy-governors under the king, and had their residence in Spalding.
It is a town which boasts of considerable antiquity, as the many relics discovered at different periods in the neighborhood sufficiently prove. We are unable to say with certainty what rank it held in the time of the Romans; it is however quite evident that even at this early period it was a place of no mean importance, and many Roman coins have been found. After the country was abandoned in 600 A. D. by the Romans, this locality subsequently became a great centre of Danish Colonization. They flourished from 867 to 1066, at which time the country was subdued by the Normans under William the Conqueror, who caused the Domesday Book to be made.
The Domesday Book is simply a schedule of land belonging to the King's Geld, and does not include any of the independent freeholders of the period, and is therefore not of that importance ignorantly attributed to it. William the Conqueror, although he confiscated some of the great fiefs of the Anglo-Saxon nobles, yet he did not touch the lands belonging to any of the tenants holding feudally under them.
The manor of Spalding, before the conquest, belonged to Algar, Earl of Mercia; William the Norman, after that event, conferred it, with all Holland, upon Ivo Tailbois, his nephew. In course of time it fell again to the crown, and became parcel of the Duchy of Lancaster.
These notes show that the name Spalding was very early introduced and extensively used in England and in Scotland. But whether the families were descended from one common ancestor, it is impossible to decide. The spelling of the name is quite uniformly the same — SPALDING; and the given names, with the exception of one or two in the Maryland branch, like Benedict, are common to all the families, both in this country and in Great Britain. It is also to be noted that in the coats-of-arms the prevailing colors are the same, which would indicate a common origin. The introduction of u into the name, as Spaulding, is an Americanism, and first appears in the wills of some of the children of the emigrant ancestor. As Edward Spalding was among the settlers of Braintree, it might be inferred that he came over in their company. But as to the family with which he was connected, or the county in England from which he came, nothing definite is known. The general tradition is that he came from Lincolnshire.
The name, so far as we have any knowledge, first appeared in connection with the town in Lincolnshire, England. This existed before Crowland; for in Ethelbald's foundation charter of that place, part of the bounds of the monastery there are said to extend "ulsque aedificid Spaldeling." Ethlelbald began to reign 716 A. D., and was killed 757 A.D.
But whether the name was introduced by Anglo-Saxons, or was brought over by a colony of Flemish people, or was left in that county by the Romans, it is impossible to determine.
As to the correct spelling of the family name there can be no controversy. It undoubtedly sprung from the town of Spalding in Lincolnshire, England, the spelling of which has been uniformly the same since the reign of Ethelbald, A. D. 716, and as a patronymic was never spelled with; a "u", until, after the establishment of the family in America. Whether the town gave name to the family, or the family to the town, is a matter of conjecture, probably the former. The early spelling of the name is plainly shown in the ancient deed bearing date 1318 A. D.
For additional information on the origin of ht eSpalding name, see
THE HISTORY OF THE SPALDING FAMILY OF GREAT BRITAIN
A PAPER READ BEFORE THE MAINE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY, JANUARY 15, 1890.
BY DR. JAMES ALFRED SPALDING, PORTLAND, MAINE.
If your name is Aldrich, the poet and author, or Aldus the printer, or Albee the essayist, or Callcot and Falconer the painters, or Rale or Raleigh, the great navigator and statesman, Waldeck the Princely, or Waldegrave or Waldemar or Wallenstein the renowned warrior, or, if you are a descendant of the celebrated politician Walpole, or wonderful Walshingham, or of Waller the poet, or of old Isaak Walton the poetical angler, or if you are a Waldron or Wallace or a Wallis, or a Walters of the London Times, or Alden or Ball or Call, or if you think of a Baldwin apple, or if Calderwood the Baker asks you to eat one of his cakes, or if you are asked how to spell the name of our genial lecturer, Dalton, or if by chance you go by the name of Hall, or Salisbury, or Salter, or Small, or Smalley, or Talbot, or Talfourd, or Walker, or Walden; and why, I almost forgot Lord Baltimore, and so on to great lengths did space permit, no one of you with such a name has any fear of having against your will a "U" forcibly inserted into your name wherever you go. No matter, where people with these names leave their card with their name spelled as they wish it, and as it can only be properly spelled or where they pronounce their name aloud to some inquirer as it should be pronounced, they are sure, except from the grossly ignorant, to have their name spelled back to them correctly, whenever it has occasion to be written. But if your name has within it that identical "al" as in this long list of personal names, and yet you are not one of these, but a Spalding, you will not find one person in a hundred who will not, to the waste of time and space, persistently insert a discordant "u." Of the name Spalding in German and French, of Spaldini in Italian and Spanish, and of Spalding in English, the vast majority of Americans make the badly-sounding and disfigured Spaulding with a "u."
How this has been brought about, it is difficult to tell, and it is all the more curious, since as it seems after long investigation that there is not another name in the long list of personal names containing anywhere an "al" which has ever had inserted into it the offending "u," since colonial days at least. It is also a very interesting and noteworthy fact, as you will undoubtedly agree with me when you consider it, that whilst a Hall, or a Small, or an Aldrich, or indeed anyone of the long list of people with an "al" in their names would never dream of allowing any insertion of "u" into his name, there is nevertheless, hardly a single one of these who would not think it the eminently proper thing to do in the case of the unfortunate name of Spalding.
Now to reply that here are Pauls and Pauldings with a "u," and that therefore Spalding ought of course to have a "u," is not to the point, at all, because it does not appear that these names Paul and Paulding, were ever spelled in any other way than that in which they now stand. No one ever heard of these names as Pal and Palding, whilst the name of Spalding was never, and never has been spelled in any other way than with the "al" in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, where we find the name essentially the same for many centuries. I emphasize this fact by asserting that although our ancestors were not renowned for their spelling, it is nevertheless a well-know historic fact, that in all documents prior to our careless American days, the name was never spelled in any other way than with the "al" and without a trace of the unnecessary "u."
Why, when it comes to Paul and Paulding once more, who does not know, that Paul is a word of two syllables, namely, Pah and Ool, and should so be pronounced. If you could see the Apostle Paul and call to him "Paul," he would not understand you; but say "Pah-Ool, come here," and he would come at once. In German, Paul is pronounced POWL, as near as one can spell the pronunciation. And our name of Powell is probably a change from the German Paul. In Italian we have Pa-Ohlo as the same name. But in the original Hebrew, Paul is Pah-Ool just as Saul is Sha-Ool, if we were only wise enough to know it. Talk to a Hebrew of his King Saul and he would not know of what you were talking, but call him KING SHA-OOL and his eyes would sparkle with delight.
Then there is the name of Paulding, which is to some a stumbling block, but when one thinks that the word is Dutch, he sees that the first syllable is not Paul at all, but POWL-ding which settles that, for any one interested in philology, and the spelling and pronunciation of proper names. But after all, the greatest stumbling block in our family name has been the Yankee "drawl," which has inflicted on us and our descendants the disagreeable "u." Nevertheless, some of us can show generation after generation who have spelled the name correctly, and that is enough for us. When I know that my great-grandfather, and grandfather and father spelled Spalding without any "u," that is enough for me to go by.
Before adding a few historical data in regard to the family, and the spelling of the name, I venture further to remark, that in the English dictionary you cannot find a trace of the unnecessary insertion of the useless "u" into the self-sufficient syllable "al."
Thus for the sake of showing my meaning more plainly, if you pick alders all day long, or think that you have already enough, and that you must also linger no more; if you endeavor to alter an altar, or alternately enter into altercations although bald, you will soon need some balsam, or if you play ball you may make a balk; or if you calk a horse to make a call upon a lady, you will hardly enter her hall with a false falchion; nor would you halt beneath the halter for a paltry bit of halibut; or if you drink malt beer or act as a maltster; or if you cover the dead with a pall, or if you are appalled at the sight of a ghost; or when you read the psalter; or qualify yourself for any quality of official duty; or if you salt your meat or are to be treated for saltrheum; or if you are small in your ways; or if from neglect of vaccination you catch the smallpox; or when you see the poor living in squalor; or if as a yachtsman you are caught in a squall; or when you stall your horses; or stalk a deer, or pluck a flower by the stalk; or stalk through the streets to vote the stalwart ticket; or when you install your rector or elect a subaltern; or swallow a scalding draught; or talk with a tall man, or if you walk along a wall with a wall-eyed wall flower; or steal a man's wallet while he is wallowing in the mud; or eat a walnut whilst waltzing with a walrus; or chalk your shoes before dancing with such a partner; why altogether, and taking it all in all, under those curious circumstances you would not think of interpolating the useless and dreadful "u" into a single one of these every-day words.
Education has taught you how to spell these words with two letters, "a" and "l" always together, never separated by a "u," and pronounced generally "ol," precisely like the proper sound of the "al" in Spalding. I do not see any force in the argument that there are a few words (making the famous exception that proves the rule), like cauliflower, fault, maul, haul, vault and assault, which have a "u" between the "a" and the "l." Because no one ever pretended to spell these words in any other way than that in which they are now spelled. If there had ever been such words as califlower, falt, mal, valt, or assalt (without any "u,") the objection might be reasonable, that just in the same way, it is correct to put the offending letter into the family name. But I have looked far and wide, and I fail to find in any dictionary any such curious spelling of these exceptional words. When discovered, we may acknowledge some reason or rhyme for the "u" which some people insert into Spalding.
What we desire then is simply the regular sound of the "a" like "o" as you hear it in nearly all of the words which I lately recited before you; or as you pronounce it in swan, watch, swap, etc. Or again, as in the same way you will see on some old French maps, Boston spelled Baston, the "a" having precisely the same short sound that the correct pronunciation gives to Boston, the hub of the universe.
Now then, although we Spaldings do not pretend to claim any descent from the heroes of William the Conqueror (for we think the family is older far than that), yet let us say, that not long after these days, as one can see in ancient English documents, there were Spaldings not a few, and that all of the family who could spell, did spell the name correctly, that is to say, of course, without the "u." Thus in 1267, Henry de Walpole (notice the absence of the "u" in the first syllable of that name,) sold to John de Spalding large amounts of lands in Tynnington.
In 1316 Peter de Spalding was Lord of West Hall Manor, Denver, Norfolk.
In 1340 John de Spalding, son of the above Peter, owned extensive tracts of land in Denver, and in Higley Dornham, Fordham.
Then again in 1318 Sir Pierce or Peter Spalding surrendered Berwick Castle on the Tweed to Sir Thomas Randall, Earl of Murray, in return for lands in Scotland; some called this Sir Pierce a traitor, but there are always two sides to such a tale. It is from this Spalding that the Spalding family of Georgia and South Carolina are descended.
In the 16th Century, David Spalding was a famous man in Dundee; he is, I think another progenitor of the family in America, but whether the direct progenitor of our Edward who came over to Braintree in 1630, or thereabouts, I cannot tell.
Brockdish parish church in Norfolk, contains the tombs and burial places of many of our race. Again, Samuel Spalding was town clerk of Cambridge in 1610, and later Lord Mayor; his portrait still hangs, I think, in the town hall.
So, too, we hear of an earlier Thomas, a prior in the reign of Henry VII.
And additionally, to complete the English list, we have a Spalding who wrote a rather too Tory History of Scotland in the XVII century; another who wrote excellent books on Italy; and a third who wrote the well-known "History of English Literature," a classic in its way.
In Italy we come across Spaldinis, who are evidently of the same family, perhaps emigrants from the north of Europe; and others of the same name in Spain. As to the Italian or Spanish spelling of the name, there can be no question, for as Garibaldi is pronounced with both "a"s broad, as in father, and the "al" spelled without the "u," so Spaldini is pronounced with the "a" broad, and spelled without the "u."
I have seen a coat armor belonging to Spaldings of Lyons in France, and the name was there spelled as we wish it, correctly.
Further still, the German Spaldings are well known; noted theologians, latinists and merchants. It is not long since that I read a remarkably well-written German novel entitled, "Spalding Brothers," and in the handsome city of Hamburg one of the finest streets is called Spalding Street.
Of the spelling of the German name, too, there can be no doubt, because Spalding in German can only be spelled and pronounced correctly in one way, and that is by declining to recognize the interpolated "u" which would make of Spalding (with the broad "a" as in father) the name nowhere extant of Spalding with the sound of "ow" in howl.
After all, the main stay of the name as spelled in good old English fashion is the fine old town of Spalding in Lincolnshire. Now, way back in Ethelbald's time (he reigned from 716 till 757, when he was murdered), there was a monastery, the grounds of which "extended on the easterly side as far as the walls of the hamlet or village of Spalding," which is said to have been originally settled in the sixth century by people of that name from Flanders. In 1601 we find the monastery still existing, but so harrassed by the monks of a neighboring religious house that our monks were forced to retire, and their abode was given over to the Abbey of Angiers in France, and became an alien priory to the latter monastery. The monastery, which went by the name of Abbey of Crowland or Croyland, was one of the thirteen largest establishments suppressed in the time of Henry VIII and Edward VI, and was then enjoying the annual income of nearly $5000 — a large sum for those days.
Well, this monastery, with its documents, shows that the town of Spalding maintained a constant existence from at least 730 or thereabouts to Henry VIII, whilst in our days it still flourishes; it has not grown very enormously; numbers about 6,000 or so people; is well-drained by means of steam pumps, though lying well down in a fenny country; a neat, clean-looking place; has a good water supply, and better even than that, cheap water rates; has a celebrated antiquarian society, well known as the Spalding Society, to which Sir Isaac Newton was not ashamed to belong. The lands all around are good for grazing, and the town is a great wool centre; the great market days are well attended.
The town is asserted by some to owe its name to the once renowned Spa, or curative chalybeate spring in the market place. But an old map says that Spalding in old Anglo-Saxon means the same as Venus Aphrodite: that is, a town built in the foam of the sea shore.
The church of St. Mary and St. Nicholas has still many fine bits of architecture, some dating back 600 years, whilst the north porch is very beautiful. Schools with ancient foundations are very plenty, and round about the place you can see Roman remains and the ruins of Crowland Abbey, which once reached "to the wall of Spalding," to quote the ancient documents. The traveler in England should not fail to see Spalding Church and Croyland Abbey and Croyland Triangular Bridge, the latter unique in this world, so far as history speaks, though there is an imitation in France.
There are also in England a Spaldington, a Spaldewick, and a Spaldford or Spaldingford, all of which one can easily fancy were settled by people of the old Spalding, or else by people with the same name that we own. Why go any farther? We have seen from the analogy of sound in the spelling of almost every proper name in the ancient and modern world, that those who insert the "u" into the good old name that belongs to us, have not a foot to stand on; that from analogy with the ancient and modern use of the syllable "al" throughout the English tongue, they are still worse off, and that finally all of the ancestors of the family in foreign lands where the family name originated, who could spell, never spelled their name in any other way, nor did any writer of ancient documents ever think of spelling this name in any other way than SPALDING.
But what are we to do with the Spaldings who will have the "u"? We do not wish to try to force people to change their names perhaps endeared to them by old associations. If people will insist on spelling their names incorrectly, not only analogically, but historically and etymologically, we cannot help that. All that we can do is to remonstrate gently. We can only show them the right road and silently suggest that they shall follow it; it is useless to try force. We can perhaps try to teach them that the good old family name is worthy of being spelled properly, and as it was always spelled before our ancestors left Europe. We can do perhaps still better by opposing the useless "u" in old-fashioned broadsides like the present paper, and maintaining that we are right, no matter who be wrong; let the latter present their arguments in a similar fashion. But whatever the issue of all our present or future efforts, yet when phonetic spelling comes, as is sure to be the case, we who have clung to the ancient spelling will be gratified in knowing that we at least shall be in good company, no matter what becomes of the rest of the race. For our name cannot then be spelled except in one way, no matter how much we may try, for Spalding with the "a" broad or flat, will always be Spalding without the "u." The "aul" will then be pronounced like fowl and the followers of that spelling will cease to be members of the former race, except to the student of language. The old name will then be spelled correctly, and pronounced correctly, just like the broad "a" as in Father, with the Spalding of today in Germany, or with the Italian cognomen, with its worthy and glorious companionship of innumerable world-renowned names, of which we would suggest Spaldini, Salvini, Salvator Rosa and Garibaldi.
