This is a locational surname of the places called Newham in Northumberland and North Yorkshire. The place near Bamborough is recorded as "Neuham" in the Fees Court Rolls of Northumberland of 1242, and the place near Morpeth as "Neweham" in the Assize Rolls of the county of 1256. The place in North Yorkshire appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as "Neuham", and as "Newenham" in the 1206 Yorkshire Feet of Fines. These places all share the same meaning and derivation, which is "the new homestead", from the Old English pre 7th Century "neowe", new, with "ham", homestead, settlement. The marriage of Edward Newham and Anna Yueley was recorded at St. Peter's Cathedral, Sheffield, Yorkshire, on February 13th 1603, and one Peter Newham was christened at All Saints, Newcastle-upon-tyne, Northumberland, on May 7th 1672. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Ambrose de Neuham, which was dated 1273, The Cambridgeshire Hundred Rolls, during the reign of King Edward 1, "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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