Origins of the Surname ‘Dunkerley’
When surnames were introduced in England, the first to assume them by right of heredity were landowners, who took the name of their estates. There was little need for swineherds, ploughmen and the like to have surnames, but workmen who moved from the country into the larger 
villages and towns, away from their families, needed an identity and this was often done by adding to their personal name the name of the place they had come from[1]. Later, a tendency developed to identify men according to their calling, if they had one, or to their parents. According to Addison, it was French clerks who took note in writing of the earliest surnames, presumably in relation to the Domesday survey or other official business. He mentions that they had particular trouble in Lancashire and Yorkshire with the local pronunciation, giving rise to a variety of spellings of even common names.
Leech[2] noted that up to about 1400 most folk of humble origin had only a Christian name, to which they added a distinguishing label that was not generally hereditary. He found that on the Preston Guild list of 1459 only 70% of those taking part had surnames, whereas in 1542 all did.
Adoption of surnames in the North of England lagged other parts of the country, but once they were started they spread rapidly, and this is consistent with what others have found about the late adoption of surnames in the North of England.
Some General Considerations
In common, perhaps, with almost all surnames, the origin and meaning of the name ‘Dunkerley’ is unclear. Furthermore it is not mentioned in the specialist books to which I have had access, including the authoritative work by Reaney[3]. As suggested above, surnames are generally classified as of three main types, namely locative, or place-names (e.g. Bolton), occupation (e.g. Butcher) and patronyms (e.g. Johnson), and these are held to account for considerably more than half of the total[4]. Although no place-name ‘Dunkerley’ is listed in the monumental work by Ekwall[5], it would, nevertheless, appear to be a locative name made up of two elements, ‘Dunker’ and ‘ley’. Ekwall is more helpful in explaining ‘ley’; it comes from the Old English ‘leah’, very commonly used in English place names. Addison quotes an old couplet:
‘In ford, in ham, in ley, in ton
The most of English surnames run.’
Ley’s main meaning is ‘an open place in a wood, a part in a wood with the trees scattered so that grass can grow’, but there are also instances where it can actually refer to a wood itself. In the former sense, ‘open place in a wood, glade’, it can occur on its own (Leigh, or Lee), but it usually occurs as the second element of a longer name. Often the meaning is clear, such as in Brierley, Oakley, Beverley (clearing where beavers were found) or Staveley (a place where staves were cut), and it is also said to be common in names denoting places of heathen worship, such as Thundersley[6].
If ‘ley’ is, then, a clearing in a wood, what might be the significance of ‘dunker’? Various possibilities present themselves. Might a ‘dunker’ be one who dunks, possibly in some baptismal rite[7]? Could it derive from a place called ‘Dunker’[8]? Might it derive from ‘kers’, meaning cress, or ‘kerr’, meaning low-lying wet land[9]? Others have suggested that ‘dunker’ could be a corruption of ‘d’Unquer’ – perhaps someone from ‘Unquer’[10]?
A further, intriguing, possibility has come to light. There is a reference to a ‘Dunker Hall’, in Lancashire, in 1747[11]. Although this post-dates by some time the earliest known references for the Dunkerley surname, it does suggest that ‘Dunker’ may be an English place name, and it may be that the house in question existed well before the date of the reference. Perhaps in the woods of the estate surrounding Dunker Hall there was a clearing where one or more families lived. When required to adopt a surname in the fifteenth century what could have been more natural than for them to be labelled as of ‘Dunker ley’? Today this locality appears to be called 'Dunkenhalgh' and a modern website remarks that it first appears in recorded history in 1285[12], so it would certainly be old enough to serve as an origin for the 'Dunker' of 'Dunkerley'.
As the surname ‘Dunker’ does exist, it is interesting to study its distribution. Internet searches of the IGI[13] reveal that ‘Donker’ is a surname that exists in England since at least 1606 in Sussex and 1654 in Derby and there is a ‘Dunker’ in 1686 near St. Austell in Cornwall. There are also one or two place names in southwest England incorporating ‘Dunk’, such as Dunkerton and Dunkeswell. By the time of the 1881 census both Dunker and Donker are quite plentiful, almost exclusively in the southeast of England, especially London, with indications that some, at least, were born in Germany. Indeed ‘dunker’ has a Germanic ring to it, and in Dutch ‘donker’ means ‘dark’ or ‘obscure’[14]; a ‘dark’ or ‘gloomy’ clearing in the woods sounds plausible.
The IGI also reveals that ‘Dunker’ is quite a common surname in certain parts of continental Europe. It occurs in Germany, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and the Netherlands (i.e. the old Germanic areas) and it is reasonable to suppose that most of the nineteenth century English Dunkers derive from the Continent by migration to London. Perhaps the Dunker of Dunker Hall had a Germanic origin.
The Internet Surname Database
This database contains the following information when searching for ‘Dunkerley, Dunkley (and similar names)[15]:
… a dialectal variant of a locational name from a place called Dinckley, near Blackburn, Lancashire. The placename was first recorded in the Assize Rolls of Lancashire in 1246, as "Dunkythele", and "Dinkedelay", and in the Pipe Rolls of 1257 as "Dinkedelagh"… The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Roger de Dynkedlegh, which was dated 1332, in the Lay Subsidy, Lancashire…
The Dinckley Question
The statement by Reaney (op. cit.) appears to be, or to share, a source of the information given above and needs further consideration. In full it is:
Dunkley, Dunckley, Duncklee:
Roger de Dunkeley 1332, Subsidy Rolls, Lancashire;
Paul Dunkeley 1642 Protestation Returns for Devon.
From Dinckley in Lancashire, Dunkythele 1246.
The British History Online website provides information about the location called Dinckley, summarised in the following paragraphs:
Dinckley was originally a small, and inconsequential, manor situated on the south bank of the River Ribble in Lancashire, near Ribchester, originally in the parish of Blackburn. The old Roman road from Ribchester to Ilkley in Yorkshire passed through it. It is a picturesque area of grassland and woods with a splendid view of Pendle Hill.
The earliest known reference is from the thirteenth century, when Ailsi was Lord of the Manor. He was the father of Elias ‘de Dunkythele’, living in 1246. His son, John, gave a daughter, Matilda, his chief messuage, Dinckley. John was associated with Bernard del Hacking who appears to have owned the manor of Dinckley. In 1313 Bernard unsuccessfully sued the representative of his brother, John, for four messuages and half the mill of ‘Dinskley’ (sic). During the succeeding century the descent of the estate is obscure. In 1430 Gilbert Cunliffe paid a fee rent of 2s for Dinckley and as Gilbert Cunliffe of Dinckley, gent, was arrested in 1440. His successor Robert, possibly his nephew, was described as of Dinckley in 1472 and 1477 and died in 1487. His son, Gilbert, sold the manor to John Talbot in 1505. Six years later it was settled by John Talbot’s trustees on his wife, Isabella, for life. In 1653 Dinckley Hall was purchased from the Treason trustees after forfeiture by John Talbot, for joining the king at Worcester in 1651. Subsequently the manor descended like that of Salesbury.
In 1353 a tenement called the Ridding was settled in 1353 by John, son of William of Mykelridding of Dinckley, on William his brother.
George Gabbet of Dinckley, yeoman, was fined in 1446 for participation in the Talbot and Hoghton disputes. In 1653 there is a mention of John Talbot of Dinckley. The hearth tax return of 1666 discloses thirty hearths, eight of which were in the only large house, that of John Talbot; no other had more than two.
About 1610 a report on the clergy stated that at Dinckley there was a ‘chapel but no reader’.
From Dinckley to Dunkerley and Dunkley
‘Dunkerley’ is a name strongly associated with certain parts of Lancashire (see here). In a search of the International Genealogical Index (IGI) from 1545 to 1625 for the surname ‘Dunkerley’, or any sounding like it, a bi-modal distribution is clearly evident. The first element is an essentially tri-syllabic name, basically ‘Dunkerley’ but with some variations, of which the only frequent ones are ‘Donkerley’ and ‘Dunckerley’. These are exclusively located in the Manchester-Oldham area. The second is an essentially bi-syllabic name, basically ‘Dunkley’ or ‘Dunckley’, but with several variations, such as ‘Dunckly’ or Dunkely’. The second group is very strongly concentrated in Northamptonshire but with some distribution in Leicestershire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. There is no overlap between the groups so we can reasonably conclude that each represents a distinct geographic area. We do not know if the two name groups had a common origin prior to the sixteenth century. This distribution was still perfectly clear at the time of the 1881 census, as can be seen by comparing the two figures shown here.
A link between ‘Dinckley’ and ‘Dunkerley’ or ‘Dunkley’ lacks any clear evidence at present. With the notable exceptions of Dunkythele (which can almost be pronounced 'Dunkerley') in the Assize Rolls of 1246 and Roger de Dunkeley in 1332, it appears that in the Dinckley area the ‘i’ vowel remained very stable throughout the middle ages and until today.
Eunice Brownlee, who is interested in the name 'Dunckley', a part of the Northamptonshire family, found a reference on the IGI for an ‘Alice de Dinkley’ born about 1249, of Billington, which lies between Whalley and Dinckley. She says:
"I always wondered what would link Northamptonshire with Lancashire, and the answer may possibly be [the] Earl of Lincoln, who died in 1313 (a pretty powerful man in his day). It seems he held both Dinckley in Lancs and Long Buckby in Northants. In Long Buckby he built a castle, for which enterprise he needed labour, craftsmen and foremen. If there were insufficient men locally, might he not have uprooted men from Dinckley to work for him down south …
The earliest mention of a Dunckley in Northants is in a court case of 1406 when this individual is being asked to give up a claim to Althorpe and settle for land nearby. There is a reference some 50 years [later] to a man in an adjoining village where the name is Doncle … these references are close in time and location to Long Buckby…."
As a surname ‘Dinckley’ seems practically nonexistent in the databases to which I have had access. Further, records from the sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century reveal not a single association of the name ‘Dunkerley’ with Blackburn. Even so, it is not impossible that ‘Dinckley’ gave rise to both ‘Dunkley’ and ‘Dunkerley’.
A database available on the internet, prepared by University College, London, and now owned by The National Trust, investigated both the historic and current distribution of surnames in England in relation to current postcode areas, based on the 1881 Census and the 1998 Electoral Registers. Looking at the 1881 maps, the geographic distribution of the Dunkley and Dunkerley names that is indicated by the IGI data is confirmed in a remarkable way. The 1881 data shows practically no overlap (see the two maps), which reinforces the indication that they are variants of a common historic name but that their spelling diverged for some reason.
Based on the oldest form of Dinckley, namely Dunkythele from 1246, it is difficult to decide which of the two family names under discussion might be the older. The name used by Roger de Dunkeley in 1332 could represent either ‘Dunkley’ by the loss of an ‘e’, reducing it to two syllables, or ‘Dunkerley’ by the addition of an ‘r’. However the occurrence of ‘Dunckley’ in Northamptonshire in 1406 suggests that the Dunkley group of names had been established by then. Other occurrences of the two-syllable name date from 1537, whereas the oldest known mention of the Dunkerley group is from 1538 when the birth of a Robert Dunkerley in Nottingham is listed in the IGI, unfortunately with no source. However, an Elizabeth Dunkerley is mentioned in connection with the tenancy of a property in Manchester in 1549 and there is reason to suspect that she might have been alive about thirty years earlier, say about 1519[16].
Both the surnames ‘Dunkley’ and ‘Dunkerley’ are quite distinctive and very stable – they appear to have maintained their main spellings since these very early occurrences and it is rare for them to be confused, although this seems to have happened in the London area.
The area of maximum occurrence for ‘Dunkerley’ in The National Trust 1881 data is Oldham, which includes Ashton Under Lyne, for which the Frequency is ‘5’. The concentration there is so great that the second areas, Manchester and Stockport, register with a Frequency of only ‘2’ and Blackburn, Warrington and, surprisingly, Hull have a frequency of ‘1’. No other postcode, including Bolton (which covers Bury), registers for ‘Dunkerley’ on The National Trust profiler. ‘Dunkerley’ was therefore a highly localised surname in 1881, and had been practically since its beginning, as will be shown below.
The National Trust profiler can also be used to show surname distributions in 1998 and although both ‘Dunkerley’ and ‘Dunkley’ have spread in comparison with the earlier data it is interesting to note that they retain distinct geographic footprints.
The data for 1881 also shows that ‘Dunkley’ appears always to have been a more common surname, than ‘Dunkerley’:
| Name | Dunkerley | Dunkley |
| Frequency | 1,0411 | 2,382 |
| Rank Order | 3,693 | 2,279 |
| Occurrences/million | 38 | 88 |
(Rank Order is the position of the surname among all those in the database, where 1 is the most frequent).
Based on an analysis of the forenames associated with these surname groups, The National Trust database suggests that both are strongly ‘English’.
Can DNA help?
The Y-chromosome is passed only from father to son, and so its DNA effectively records the surname-line of a man’s ancestry. This raises the interesting possibility of investigating the hypothetical common ancestry of the Dunkerley and Dunkley families. At the present time I know of two Y-chromosome tests for Dunkerley (mine and one other) and one for Dunkley. Although the two Dunkerley tests match each other very closely, the known Dunkley sample does not. Hopefully, over time, more men from these two groups will have Y-chromosome DNA tests done and it will be possible to see if there is indeed a common origin. You can read about my test here[17].
For a view on the old Lancashire custom of using local names instead of formal surnames, see here.
Written by Philip Dunkerley
This page was last modified on 09 Jul 2009