Recorded as Club, Clubb, and the locational Clubley, this is an English surname. As Club or Clubb it is or rather was, a medieval occupational surname for a "clubber" or a maker of clubs used for warlike purposes. As a locational surname it apparently originates from a place called Clubley which would appear to mean 'club farm', or possibly an area where clubs were made. The problem that we have here is that inspite of extensive research it would seem that no such place now exists, or has been recorded in the gazetters of the British Isles for the past three centuries. This suggests that it is one of the three thousand and more 'places' which have disappeared from the landscape of the British Isles since medieval times. Locational surnames are in any case usually 'from' names. That is to say names given to people after they left their original homes to move somewhere else, often in search of work. With Clubley the surname is quite well recorded in the surviving church registers of the city of London since at least Stuart times, as it was to London that displaced persons tended to head for. These recordings include Will Clubley, a christening witness at St Olaves church, Hart Street, on September 18th 1658, during the 'reign' of Oliver Cromwell, and Jane Clubley who married Michael Kean at St Anne's Soho, on August 4th 1789. The first recording in any form is believed to be that of Gilbert Clobbe in the Pipe Rolls of the county of Cambridge in the year 1166.

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