This interesting surname, widely recorded in Church Registers of Yorkshire and Lancashire from the mid 16th Century under the variant spellings Setterfield, Satterfitt, Saterweyte, Satterwaite, Saterthwait, Setterthwait etc., is of locational origin from a place near Hawkshead, Lancashire, called Satterthwaite. Recorded as Staerthwayt in the 1336 "Coucher Book of Furness Abbey", the place was so called from the old Norse "saetr", a shieling, plus the old Norse "thveit", Medieval English "thwaite", a patch of pasture land or a cleared meadow. On October 18th 1562 ThomasSaterwhet, an infant, was christened in Rotherham, Yorkshire and on December 24th 1569 the christening of Jenatt Satterthwaite took place in Hawkshead, Lancashire. One, Robert Saterthwaite of Coutehouse in Hawkshead was entered in the Lancashire Wills Records held at Richmond, in 1596. A Coat of Arms granted to the family comprises an ermine shield with three red roses on a black chief (upper part). A gold lion's head erased, gorged with a black collar, and charged with three silver roses is on the crest. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Oliver Saterweyte, (marriage to Joan Wade), which was dated June 10th 1548, at Rotherham, Yorkshire, during the reign of King Edward V1, known as "The Boy King", 1547 - 1553. 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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