This interesting surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is an occupational name , deriving from the Olde English pre 7th Century "bur" meaning "a chamber", and "ing", in this context, "a friend" or "servant", one who looked after the "bower-chamber" in a lord or chiefs house. Job-descriptive surnames originally denoted the actual occupation of the namebearer, and later became hereditary. There are many devloped spellings, all with essentially the same meaning, although some are common as surnames and these include: Bower, Bur, Bowerman, Borman, Bowra, Boorer, Burra, Bowring and Bowering. The surname was first recorded in the early 14th Century (see below), and other early recordings include: Mayfflin atte Bur (1280, Somerset); Gilbert atte Boure (1296, Sussex); Robert Boreman (1327, Sussex; and Walter Bowryng (1328, Somerset). The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Henry Bouryng, which was dated 1302, in the "Pipe Rolls of Derbyshire", 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.