Catchpole is a

surname In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...

and type of

tax collector A tax collector (also called a taxman) is a person who collects unpaid taxes from other people or corporations on behalf of a government. The term could also be applied to those who audit tax returns or work for a revenue agency. Tax collec ...

in medieval England. It is a combination of

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

(cace-, catch) and

medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. It was also the administrative language in the former Western Roman Empire, Roman Provinces of Mauretania, Numidi ...

(pullus, a chick) and derives from the idea that people who owed tax were as difficult to catch as farmyard hens.World Wide Words
Issue 825: 30 March 2013, 'Catchpole' The Catchpole name is from

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

, southern England. At that time, tax-gathering was contracted out in a system called tax farming. The catchpole paid a lump sum for authority to collect taxes from a given area or population, and was then able to keep whatever he could, using almost any method. Later, his duties were those of a legal official, working for the

bailiff A bailiff is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. There are different kinds, and their offices and scope of duties vary. Another official sometimes referred to as a '' ...

. He was mainly responsible for collecting debts, using methods hardly more restrained than those of his tax gathering forebears.

Notable bearers

* Brent Catchpole, New Zealand politician *

Hugh Catchpole Hugh Catchpole CBE Hilal-i-Imtiaz, HI (26 May 1907 – 1 February 1997) was a British educationist and philanthropist, mostly active in British India, and later India and Pakistan. He was a teacher and administrator in military colleges and scho ...

, academician and administrator * George Catchpole (born 1994), British rugby player * Henry Catchpole (disambiguation), multiple people *James Morrison Catchpole, birth name of English singer-songwriter James Morrison * Jordan Catchpole (born 1999), British Paralympic swimmer * Judith Catchpole, colonial American maidservant * Ken Catchpole (1939–2017), Australian rugby player *

Kylie Catchpole Kylie R. Catchpole is a solar energy researcher, who was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences in 2024. She is also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences. She is a professor at the Australian National Univ ...

, Australian solar energy researcher *

Margaret Catchpole Margaret Catchpole (14 March 1762 – 13 May 1819) was an English servant girl, chronicler, and Convicts in Australia, deportee to Australia. Born in Suffolk, she worked as a servant in various houses before being convicted of stealing a horse ...

, British deportee to Australia

In fiction

* Eric Catchpole, character in the British series ''Lovejoy'' *Tristan Catchpole, character in the television series ''Starhunter''

References

{{surname, Catchpole English-language surnames