This interesting and unusual surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name from "Farewell" in Staffordshire. The placename is recorded as "Fagerwell" in the 1200 Charter Rolls and as "Faierwell" in the 1200 Pipe Rolls of the county, and derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century "faeger", fair, beautiful, with "well(a)", well, spring, stream; hence "beautiful stream". During the Middle-Ages when migration for the purpose of job-seeking was becoming more common, people often took their former village name as a means of identification, thus resulting in a wide dispersal of the name. Regional and dialectal differences have produced variations in the spelling of the name, which is first recorded in the latter half of the 12th Century (see below), and can also be found as Farwell, Farewell and Varwell. Stephen Farwel is noted in the 1224 Curia Regis Rolls of Cumberland. Recordings of the surname and its variants from English Church Registers include; the christening of Jone Varwell on June 13th 1544 at Bridford, Devon; the marriage of Abraham Varvell and Sara Webster on August 20th 1610 at St. Leonard's, Eastcheap, London; and the christening of John, son of John Varvell, on March 2nd 1628 at Holme upon Spaldin Moor, Yorkshire. The Coat of Arms most associated with the family is a silver engrailed chevron between three gold leopards' faces, the Crest being two green oak branches orleways, acorned gold. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Bartholomew de Faierwelle, which was dated 1180, in the "Pipe Rolls of Yorkshire", during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. 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.

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