This unusual surname is of
Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a
locational name from any of the various places so called in Lancashire, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire, which derive their name from the
Olde English pre 7th Century "scyttel(s)", bar, bolt, with "worth", enclosure; hence, "enclosure made of bars of a certain kind". Shuttleworth in Bury, Lancashire, was recorded as "Suttelsworth" in the 1227
Feet of Fines for that county, and as "Shitleswurth" in the 1246
Assize Court Rolls. Locational surnames were originally given to the
lord of the manor, or as a means of identification to those who left their place of origin to settle elsewhere. The surname first appears on record in the mid 13th Century (see below). The Shuttleworths of Shuttleworth Hall, in the
Parish of Whalley, Lancashire, were in residence there as early as 1329, when Henry
de Shuttleworth "died seised of it and eight oxgangs". His son, Ughtred, lived at Gawthorpe, near Burnley, Lancashire, and Ughtred has survived as a popular
given name in this family into modern times. One Thomas Schytylworth was noted in the Corpus Christi Guild Records of Yorkshire, dated 1477. A
Coat of Arms granted to the Shuttleworth family is a
silver shield, with three
black weavers' shuttles tipped and furnished with quills of yarn, the threads pendant
gold. A cubit arm in armour
proper grasping in the gauntlet a shuttle of the arms is on the
Crest. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Henry de Schutlesworth, which was dated 1246,
witness in the "Assize Court Rolls of Lancashire", during the reign of King Henry 111, known as "
The Frenchman", 1216 - 1272. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as
Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing
variants of the original spelling.