Recorded in various spelling forms including Stolworthy, Stallworthy, and Stolworth, this surname is English. It is locational and appears to originate from a now "lost" medieval village called Stallworth or similar. If not the surname may be topographical for one who lived at a pool in an enclosure. The origin is Old English pre 7th Century "stal-worp", and the surname is well recorded in London, and the home counties from the mid 17th Century. It has been estimated that over five thousand surnames of the British Isles including many in Ireland, originate from places that no longer exist. These at various times since the 12th century, having been cleared either by famine, plague, coastal erosion, occasionally war, and more often changes in farming practice. This was especially from arable to pasture to facilitate sheep farming, although this process, has in the 20th century, been reversed. Examples of the surname recording include: Janan Stallworthy, married at St. Martins in the Field, Westminster, on May 21st 1672, and Edmund Stolworthy a witness at the church of St. Mary-Le-Bone, city of London, on November 19th 1768. The first recorded spelling of the family name in the surviving church registers is believed to be that of James Staleworthy, which was dated April 19th 1627, when he married Alice Brooks at St. Giles Church, Cripplegate, city of London. This was during the reign of King Charles 1st, known as "The Martyr," 1625 - 1649". Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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