This name is of Northern English locational origin from Wrigley Head near Salford, Lancashire. The first element is formed from the Olde English pre 7th Century verb 'wrigian', to bend or turn (applied here in a topographic sense), plus 'leah', a wood or clearing' hence, 'clearing by a river bend'. The surname is first recorded in the early half of the 14th Century, (see below). One Willelmus Wryglegh appeared in the 1379 'Poll Tax Returns of Yorkshire'. The name is particularly well recorded in Lancashire Church Registers from the mid 16th Century. On July 10th 1544 Alice Wrigley and William Saxon were married in Middleton by Oldham and on November 10th 1588 Edmund, son of Hugh Wrigley, was christened in that parish. The marriage of Edmund Wrigley and Jane Stocke took place in Rochdale on August 28th 1664. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of William de Wriggeley, which was dated 1327, 'The Subsidy Rolls of Derbyshire', during the reign of King Edward III, The Father of the Navy, 1327 - 1377. 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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