This intriguing name, with variant spellings Boutflour and Bonefellow, derives from the Medieval English "bulte", to sift and "flour", flour, hence, "sift-flour", a nickname for a miller. The surname is first recorded at the beginning of the 14th Century, (see below). One, Adam Bonteflour is mentioned in "Some Middle English Occupational Terms) by B. Sundby under the date 1332 and a William Buntflowre in the 1511 Records of London City. Further variants "Bonfelow" and "Bunfellow" appear in the Pipe Rolls of Norfolk, dated 1521. These forms result from dialectual variations in the pronunciation of "Buntflowre". In 1782, the birth of one, Lucy Boughtflower was recorded in London and in 1805 William John Bouthtflower, an infant, was christened in St. Michael's, Bassishaw, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of John Bulteflour, which was dated 1313, in the "Surnames of London", by E. Weekley, 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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