Shelvock is a name of

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

origins - from the

Old English Old English (, ), 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 was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

{{lang, anm, scelf meaning a shelf of level ground, or flat topped hill, and ''ac'' meaning oak, taken from the ancient Manor of Shelvock, near

Ruyton-XI-Towns Ruyton-XI-Towns ( "ry-tən eleven towns"), formally Ruyton of the Eleven Towns or simply Ruyton, is a village and civil parish next to the River Perry in Shropshire, England. It had a population of 1,379 at the 2011 Census. The preparatory schoo ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

originally pronounced "''shelf'ac''", "''shelv'ak''" or "''shelv'oak''", but today as "''shel'vock''". All families with this name (and associated variants Shilvock & Shelvoke) are believed to be given to tenant-farmers and servants attached to the manor. Shelvock is also a type of freestone quarried on the property, a Permian sandstone, known to be used in the building of Grimpo Congregational Chapel, 3 km north of Shelvock.

Manor of Shelvock

In the Domesday period (1086) Shelvock was one of the three Berewicks (a hamlet attached to a manor) of the Manor of

Wykey Wykey is a hamlet in Shropshire, England. It is approximately 2 miles north of the larger village of Ruyton-XI-Towns, and is recognised as one of the eleven ("XI") towns. In the centre of the village one can find the rare sight of a 19th-centur ...

. Sometime between the ''

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

'' and 1175 Shelvock became the head of the manor. The first recorded spelling of Shelvock was Shelfhoc (1175), and later Sselvak and Schelfac (c. 1270). From the 15th century and for several centuries Shelvock was the seat of the Thornes family, before its decline in the 18th century and beyond. In the 1890s, then a farm house in the Parish of

(Ruyton-of-the-Eleven-Towns, or simply Ruyton), Shelvock was part of the Tedsmore Hall property. In 1894 the

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

of Shelvock included the house and one cottage. In the 21st century only the working farm remains. Detailed History of Shelvock Manor

Family names

''Shelvock'' is the original family name of Shropshire origins. ''Shilvock'' - pronounced ''shil'vok'' - the variant created in the 17th or 18th century by

Black Country The Black Country is an area of the West Midlands county, England covering most of the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall. Dudley and Tipton are generally considered to be the centre. It became industrialised during its ro ...

(North

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

/South

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

) dialect and is the dominant family name and spelling today. After US immigration some Shilvock families reverted to the name Shelvock. Both family names can be found in Central England, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Shelvoke is a variant (occasionally Shelvoak). Extinct as a family name (since the 1960s), the name survives only in a small number of UK engineering firms, the most notable of which are Accles & Shelvoke and

Shelvoke and Drewry Shelvoke and Drewry was a Letchworth, Hertfordshire manufacturer of special purpose commercial vehicles. It was best known for its innovative waste collection vehicles that were the preferred choice of municipal authorities in the UK together w ...

, which the latter became incorporated into Shelvoke Dempster, Dennis Shelvoke, and other spin-off companies. The name also exists in a firm of accountants based in

Cannock Cannock () is a town in the Cannock Chase district in the county of Staffordshire, England. It had a population of 29,018. Cannock is not far from the nearby towns of Walsall, Burntwood, Stafford and Telford. The cities of Lichfield and Wolverh ...

, Staffordshire. Noted people with the name include: *

Captain George Shelvocke George Shelvocke (baptised 1 April 167530 November 1742) was an English Royal Navy officer and later privateer who in 1726 wrote ''A Voyage Round the World by Way of the Great South Sea'' based on his exploits. It includes an account of how his Ca ...

, 18th-century privateer and author * George Shelvocke, son of Captain George Shelvocke, a member of the crew and later secretary general of the Post Office in London

External links

Shelvock Worldwide One-Name/Location Study & Resources (original source of this essay and submitted article)

SHELVOCK Blog - Ongoing research & discussion History of Shropshire