Recorded as Tizer, Tiser, Tisor, Tissier, Tisard, Tizard, Tizzard, Tixier and Teyssier, this is an English surname but one of pre 10th century Old French and Flemish origins. It is an occupational name for a weaver, the derivation being from the word "tissier", to weave, or "tisseur", a weaver. In England the name refers specifically to the famous Flemish weavers of the medieval period, brought from the continent to teach cloth making in Britain. They originally settled in Gloucestershire and Cambridge, and later others followed to Norwich, Waterford, and London, where a weaving colony flourished for several centuries, and was greatly strengthened by Huguenot Protestants after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The surname is first recorded in the early half of the 14th Century (see below), and examples recorded in surviving church registers of the early Stuart period include on January 5th 1619, Joanna Tizer married Franciscus White at St. Martins in the Fields, Westminster, and Elizabeth, daughter of Phillip and Mary Tizard, was christened on November 14th 1686 at St. Anne's, Soho, also in Westminster, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is believed to be that of Nicholas Tisser, which was dated 1327, in the "Subsidy Rolls of Cambridgeshire". This was during the reign of King Edward 111, known as "The Father of the Navy", 1327 - 1377. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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