Recorded in various forms including Purslow and the apparently southern or London dialectals of Purseglove and Pursglove, this is an English surname. It has nothing to do with either purses or gloves being locational from the village of Purslow in Shropshire. The origin of the village name is Olde English pre 7th century, being made up of the elements 'Pur' a personal name which meant the bittern bird, and 'hlaw', often a burial mound but usually a hill. The earliest place name recordings include Posselaw in the famous Domesday Book of 1086, and Pusselawe in the Book of Fees in1226. Locational surnames are usually "from" names. That is to say names that were given to strangers as easy identification as he or sometimes she, left their original homes and moved somewhere else. Spelling being at best erratic and local accents very thick, often lead as with this name, to the development of some extraordinary variants. According to the famous Victorian research book "Patronymica Brittania" the spellings as Purs(e)glove were 18th century, and created by the change from the west midland accent to southern English and "cockney". Early examples of recordings include Edward Purselowe, whose son Richard was christened at Sidbury, Salop, on October 13th 1570, and later in the diocese of Greater London, Thomas Pursglove, who married Barbara Furniss at the famous church of St Martins in the Field, Westminster, on April 10th 1797. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Robarte de Purselowe. This was dated 1275, in the Hundred Rolls of the county of Shropshire. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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