Recorded as Brusle, Brussell, Brusshill, Brushell, Bruzell, Brussels and probably others, however spelt this is a rare surname. In some cases it may be from the city of Brussels in Belgium, but in general, in so far as one can generalise, we suspect the origin is early French. If so it may be a diminutive and sometimes a patronymic of the famous surname Bruce, to mean Little Bruce or son of Bruce. The surname Bruce was first introduced into the British Isles at the time of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, with that of Robert de Bruis. As recorded in Domesday Book in 1086, he was given lands in Yorkshire, and it was from this family that the later Robert, The Bruce, king of Scotland in 1306, descended. Spellings of this surname over the centuries included examples such as Richard le Breuys in the Subsidy Tax Rolls of Worcester in 1275, and it may be from spellings such as this, that the later forms including this surname, gradually developed. The French spelling of the surname as applied to a former inhabitants of Brussels is Bruxelles, whilst the dictionary of French surnames also includes Brusle, from bruler, meaning hot, as in a hot place, and that is certainly a very possible origin of this surname. Examples of later recordings include Theodore Brusle at the French Huguenot church, Threadneedle Street, city of London, on February 3rd 1639, and Ann Brusell at the church of St Martins in the Field, Westminster, on December 26th 1671.

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