Brettell One Name Study

The earliest reference for the name is Thomas de Bredhill. The fact that the de element is used shows that he came from a place called Bredhill, which is likely to have been the name of a hill, west of Brierley Hill and east of Audnam. Bredhill is either a corruption of Brit (British) or Brad (Broad) Hill.

Bredhill was a medieval sub estate of Kingswinford and lasted as an agricultural entity until the 16th century when coal mining began and destroyed the village centre of Brettell. The name had changed by that date. Glass works operated in the area from the 17th century and in the late century Phillip Henzy, a glass master, took it over and renamed it Hawbush. Brettell Lane which once ran through the settlement, went from the Stourbridge - Wolverhampton Road to the Kingswinford – Dudley Road. Now only a section of it retains the name.

Sources

1327 Lay Subsidy for Kingswinford, Dudley , West Midlands .
Thom: de Bredhill 1. 6.
(Notes on Guttery’s Kingswinford History, P. 13.)

1409 Rector of Kingswinford - John Bredhill King Henry VI disputed the authority of the dowager Lady Constance (Barony of Dudley to hold the advowson of the church .
(Notes on Kingswinford History, P. 17.)

The Rectory was broken into by Sir John Sutton VI (Baron of Dudley) and John Sheldon and John Clarke, two residents of Kingswinford. They burst open four coffers, took away the contents and destroyed, spoiled and stolen all they could lay their hands on in the premises including John Bredhill’s library of 70 books worth £50. The damage amounted to £133.10s.
(Notes on Kingswinford History, P. 17.)

1437 A scholar of John Bredhill was charged for stealing a silver paten from the church. (Did this mean John was running a chantry school?)
(Notes on Kingswinford History, P. 21.)

In the late 15 th - early 16 th century the name was starting to undergo some corruption. The ‘d’ being changed to ‘t’ and the ‘h’ being lost.

1539 Muster Roll
William Clerke abull man hath a salett: Richard Corbyn, gent. Hath 2 gesturnys and a bill; Richard Whorwood, gent hath bowe and arrowys; Nicholas Bennett ys an abull mon and hath a byll; William Bendy hathe a bow; William Agorton hathe a bowe; Humfrey Cooper shall provyde a sheff of arrowys; John Hodgetts shall provyde a salett; Robert Wohoys hath a polaxs and John Wodhoys his sun, abull, no arnes; Anthony Hypkiss abull man and shall provyde a byll, Thomas Hill shall provyde splents; Nicholas Brydde abull man shall provyde a bow; Raffe Sutton abull mon shall provyde xii arrowes; John Tomyns shall provyde a salett; Thomas Tomyns shall provyde a gorgett; John Oores shall provide a syward; John Wood hath a gesturne salett and byll ; Thomas Bretyll hath a sword and a dager. John Jurden shall provyde a byll; William Northall hath a bowe; Hwenry Bennett shall provyde a salett, Thomas Bennett shall provyde splintes; Richard Bradeley hathe a bowe; Humfre Bradeley hathe a bow; Thomas Shaw shall provyde a salett and splentes; Olyver Shaw shall provyde xvi arrowes; Thomas Hunlocke abull mon hathe a byll; Rychard Berneley shall provyde a swyrd.
(Notes on Kingswinford History, P.25)

Though it still varied, even in describing the same person!

1524/25 Lay Subsidy for Halesowen

Robte Brettell g xl.s xii.d Robert Bretell iii.Li xviii.d

M.A.Faraday The Lay Subsidy for Shropshire 1524-7, Shropshire Record Series 3. pp.32-33. & 103-195. and by the late 16th century the general spelling used today had begun.

1592
William Brettell of Kinges Swynford, yeoman, carried on the craft of a nailer at Kinges Swynford from 1590 for twelve months contrary to the Statute 5 Eliz., not having done so at the date of the act or served an apprenticeship; whereof Edward Asemore of Westbromwiche, naylor, petitions for a moiety of the £24 forfeited.

Note: The Statute 5 Elizabeth Ist made it an offence for anyone practicing a trade without a formal apprenticeship of seven years.
(Notes on Kingswinford History, P.31.)

It has been suggested that the personal name Brettell derived from De Breteuille during the 16th century. This is very unlikely as I hope has been suggested above, this is a normal English name that has evolved and there is no sign of French origins in it. The Henzey's, Tittery's and Tyzack's were Lorrainer's and although their names have been anglicised their origins cannot be mistaken. That the Brettell's married into these families is not surprising in the small communities that made up this part of the West Midlands at this particular time. As can be seen all these predated the coming of the continental glassmakers who first appeared in the Stourbridge area at the beginning of the 17th century.

John Hemingway, Archaeological Officer, 2004.

and, further to the above emailed to me from John Hemingway. . .

I have been studying the place-name Brettell rather than the family name the reason that I believe the family-name is derived from the place-name is due to the fact that the closer you get to Kingswinford (the parish) the more members of the Brettell family occur.

I have a local field walker called Brettell and I went to see her parents a few years ago. They also seemed certain that they were decended from French emigres. At the time I had some doubts about this conclusion but had no evidence to refute it. When I began to study Brettell, the settlement, (it is now called Hawbush) and is due north of Amblecote I realised it was a very old name but had been grossly corrupted, probably during the 16th century when Brettell the personal name started to appear in the parochial records.

The changes in the surname showed that in the medieval period it was spelt as BRED HILL. If you separate the two sections of the modern word BRET TELL you can see how it occurred. The changes from 't' to 'd' and 'I' to 'e' are regular letter occurances in English, the strange thing is the change from 'h' to 't' which I have never observed before.

I was still left with this common problem with the French connection that most of the members of the (Brettell) family seem to insist on. (Historians and Archaeologists ignore oral history at there peril), so I continued looking for it. And that was when I found the Henzey connection. Paul Henzey was a Protestant Lorrainer and glassmaster who escaped from France with other Frenchmen in the late 16th century. He came to the 'Stourbridge' area when King James Ist put a ban on Glassmakers in 1617 using charcoal for their furnaces. He started work in Oldswinford, using local coal but then moved to Amblecote and finally to Brettell. The reason he came to Brettell is because it was the centre of the coal field. The Henzey family made Brettell their main home and obviously intermarried with the local families including the Brettell's. It was one of the Henzey's who changed the place-name Brettell to Hawbush, though I have no idea why?

So when you say you are decended from Frenchmen, you are probably correct - but your name is not! It is of Anglo-Saxon origin and has been used around Kingswinford for at least 1200 years.

From Jason Ellis, Author of "Glassmakers of Stourbridge and Dudley 1612-2002"

... You may find the following of interest:

It is assumed that the name devolves from a French family, de Breteuil, who settled in the area well before the religious persecutions. The earliest reference is not from a primary source, but Shaw's Staffordshire where one J. Bredhull is mentioned in connection with Kingswinford in 1414.

The first reference from primary sources is the name Roger Bretyl (in another place Brethull) who appears in a rental roll of the Abbey of Halesowen, dated 15 Henry VII (i.e. 1500).

However, by the mid 1500s the family name had most firmly been consistently anglicised as Brettell. In 1586 George Haynes of Grafton Flyford married at Wolverly to Margaret Brettell; in 1589 Thomas the son of Anthony and Elizabeth Brettell was baptised there; and in the same year William Talbot and Jane Brettell were married. Many wills exist and rites of passage are recorded in the registers of Clent, Romsley, Wolverley, Halesowen and Kidderminster - all spelt Brettell.

The name first appears in Oldswinford in 1610 when Richard Brettell and Elizabeth Southwicke were married. The Brettell family then became entwined with the Glassmaking Henzey family when brothers John and Thomas Brettell married respectively Anne and Sarah Henzey. The Norman family of de Breteuil bears arms, "D'azur, a trois glands d'or" which closely resembles that of Henzey.

The point that I am making is that the family who gave the name to the place adopted a standard spelling of their name as Brettell from about 1550 and it has never to this day varied. The reason that the place has been occasionally interpreted as Brittell or Britwell is easily explained if you try an pronounce Brettell with a heavy Black Country accent. In other words, the very few documented occurrences as Brittell or Britwell were misheard and written down as the Clerk or whomever thought he had heard the word pronounced. I cannot accept that this makes it right - it was an error...

source: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/STAFFORDSHIRE/2003-02/1046217181

The On-Line Library Catalogue of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

"Collections for a Genealogy of the Noble Families of Henzey, Tyttery and Tyzack (De Hennezel, De Thietry and Du Thisac) "Gentils-hommes verriers," from Lorraine: with a narrative pedigree of the Stroubridge branch of the first-named family and it's descendants, including the several families of Brettell, Bate, dixon, Hill, Jeston, Jervis, Pidcock and others." The main author of this manuscript was Henry Sydney Grazebrook (1836-1896)."

Notes state that "Sometime in the sixteenth century, three noble Hueguenots, named de Hennezel, de Thietry, and du Thisac (anglicised Henzell or Henzey, Tyttery and Tyzanc), all glassmakers and native of Lorraine, left France because of religious persecution and immigrated to England and settled some at Newcastle-upon-Tyne and some to the neighbourhood of Stourbridge. Descendants lived in Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Northumberland, London and elsewhere."

Joshua Henzey of Amblecote, in the parish of Oldswinford, Stafford County, England, was the son of Ananias Henzell, of the house of Henzell near the villiage of Darnell, in Lorraine France. Joshua and his wife, Joan Brettell, had four sons. He died in February 1671-72 aged 82. Descendants lived in Staffordshire Kent, Ireland and elsewhere.

Grazebrook's hand-written family tree and The Henzey Coat of Arms can be seen here

The following articles "MIGRATION FRANCE TO ENGLAND" may be viewed in full HERE.

Extract from CORRESPONDENCE OF SYLVANUS URBAN From GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE - VOL. XLVI NOV. 1856 PAGES 592-3....

"The Henzeys (as the name was afterwards spelt) are represented by the Pidcocks of the Platts, (who for several generations carried on the glass trade), the Brettells of Finstall house, near Bromsgrove, and the Dixons, formerly of Dixons green, Dudley: - by the Pidcocks, through the marriage of Wm. Pidcock with Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Henzey, esq., who died in 1712; by the Brettells[9] through the marriage, in 1748, of Thomas Brettell[10], esq., of Stourbridge, (afterwards of Finstall house), with Sarah Henzey, of Broseley, (with the consent of Susanna Barrett, of Broseley, widow); and by the Dixons, through the marriage of Jonathan Dixon[11], of Kidderminster, with Mary Henzey, in 1737."

[9]The Brettell family appear to have been connected with the Henzeys before, through the marriage of Johsua Henzey with Joan Brettell, who died in 1671.

[10]Thomas Brettell was, I believe, the first of the family who resided at Finstall, and was great grandfather of the present possessor.

[11]"Jonathan Dixon, of Kidderminster, and Mary Henzey, of this parish, were married at the College by me, Oct. 7, 1737, by license, Thomas Smith." (From the parish register of St. Michael's, Worchester.) - Noakes's "Notes and Queries for Worchestershire", page 3.

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE - VOL.XLVII JAN 1857 PAGES 73-4 Extract from letter address to MR. URBAN......

In reply to your correspondent's query regarding Sarah and Mary Henzey, who married respectively Brettell and Dixon, I am of the opinion that they were sisters, for I find that John Henzey had by his wife, née White, three daughters, Frances, Mary and Sarah, and that Mary was married to Jonathan Dixon.

I may add that the Brettell family was of French origin, and that its history is given by Desbois under the name of De Breteuille. This family intermarried frequently with the Henzeys in England. Thus it appears from the Old Swinford parish register, that on the 15th of September, 1617, John Brettell married Mary Henzye, and the Joshua referred to in the coat of arms married Joan Brettell, who died in 1671.

CUTTING FROM NEWSPAPER [Source not known]

"..... The articles reproduced above give some understanding of the emigration of the Henzell family to England. The Henzell family now settled in Australia, particularly those living in Queensland, and descended from the four sons of John Harrop Henzell who migrated to Australia in the 1860's, are descended from the family of Henzells from Newcastle upon Tyne."

Extracts from "The Blackcountryman" Autumn 1989, Volume 22, No4.
Author Peter Chandler

The surname derives from the place Brettell, a hamlet that used to straggle along either side of the wide road leading up to Brierley Hill from Amblecote. It may derive from braedu-hyll, signifying the 'broad hill'. Certainly this fits the topography of the place. Our local Brettells are still centred here. There are 32 listed with Cradley Heath telephone numbers, giving a local rate of 2,000 per million, together with 25 in Lye, 15 in Stourbridge and 10 in Kingswinford. As we move away from this centre, the numbers fall and the form 'Brittle' becomes more common.

Historically there is evidence for the name since surnames became hereditary in the centuries around 1300. The records of the forest of Kinver show that William son of Benedict of Bredhull together with John son of Alexander of Himley, Henry "who"was miller at holebach" and Walter the Small of Swindon poached a stag from the forest on 17 June, 1266. Some years later Constantine of the More of Old Swyneford was assaulted at Ordesle (Wordsley), and he accused Elias and Thomas of Breydehille. There are mentions of William and Thomas of Bredhull in 1332; later the 'of in surnames derived from places disappeared. D. R. Guttery's book, 'The Two Johns — Patron and Parson' describes what is known of the career of John Bredhill. He was a local man, born about 1400, who became the parson of Kingswinford and was later accused of robbery, rape and other crimes. (!!)

By the sixteenth century the spelling of the surname had come closer to its modern forms. In 1524 Richard and Roger Brethyll were listed as paying tax in Kingswinford parish, which included Brettell. Twenty years later there is evidence of the family spreading into neighbouring parishes, since a Roger Brettell is shown as living in Stourbridge. From 1570 it would be possible to draw up quite a full family tree. In each generation there was a yeoman living at the ancestral house, and younger sons and other relatives gaining their livelihoods from a variety of trades. In the Hearth Tax of 1664, there are five Brettells listed for Kingswinford, and one in each of Rowley Regis, Amblecote, Kinver and Cradley.

To flesh out the story, let us set down what is known of 'John Brettle of Brettle, yeoman' who was buried on 10 March, 1693. He inherited his father's land in 1657, but his only children by his wife Jone were born much later. Sarah was baptised in November, 1672, and Joshuah in December, 1676. The inventory of his goods, taken ten days after his death, shows that they were worth only £83. That made him quite poor for a yeoman, but his will does show him leaving £100 to Joshuah and £200 to Sarah.

From Research of Paul Brettell (UK), a descendant of John Orme BRETTELL, via Kath Connors (Aus):

There was a Norman family called de Breteuil or Bretteville also Bretel ("noble family") who settled in the neighbourhood of Stourbridge, West Midlands, England at the beginning of the 16^th century,

A Roger Britoil at a place called Brothel appears in a rental of the Abbey of Halesowen Dated in the 15 th year of Henry V11’s reign as a tenant of lands in Romsley where the family resided in the 17^th Century. A John Bredhulll is recorded as living in 1414 in the parish of Kingswindford at a place called Brettell (Brightwell or Britwell ). Some Brettells married into the family of Henzey who were French Hughuenots who settled in Stourbridge areas and started glass industry .

In 1617 John Brettell married Anne [Mary?] Henzey at Oldwinford, Stourbridge and Thomas Brettell of Finstsall House, Finstall Bromsgrove. Married in 1748 at Broseley, Shropshire. (This is Kath Connors' line)

The Brettells also married into the Wards (Dudley family) according their wills. Their coat of arms is derived from the Wilmer family. Thomas Wilmore dau. Ann marr. to Thoms Brettell of Over Arley Gent. The coat of arms was used by the Dixon family and The Brettell family of Dudley and Kingswindford (this is Kath's branch of the Brettells). A Mr William Edwards of Ludlow also used the arms of Wilmer after assuming the surname Brettel-Vaughan of Burway, Shropshire.

There appears two families of Brettells.
1. Bromsgrove (Finstall), Stourbridge and Oldwinford.
2. Dudley. The exact relationship/connection has as yet to be found. The name Brettell may be derived from a place called Brettell, Insert from the BLACK COUNTRY Surnames

Notes on The Stourbridge Glass Trade fron Penny FONTANA (nee BRETTELL):
From Stourbridge Glass Trade (1977) H.J. Haden (Dudley Public Libraries)

Well off families from Lorraine, on the French / German borders, established the glass trade in Stourbridge, they were entrepreneurs & industrialists, the site was chosen deliberately because of its' natural resources. By 1667 there was a glasshouse sited in Brettell Lane. There was a serious trade depression from about 1710 extending well into the 1730s, several firms were made bankrupt. The Brettell Lane glasshouses were owned by the Henzey family at that time. By 1760 there were 10 glasshouses. John Hill of Stourbridge went to Ireland before 1785 to set up the Waterford works (and took with him "the best set of workmen he could get in the county of Worcestershire".) Similarly, it was thought that when the works were set up in Stourbridge originally, workmen & their families were brought from France. Some say that the French were Huguenots escaping religious persecution but the author of the book seemed to disagree somewhat.

From Eddie Brettell of Preston, Lancs (UK):

My understanding of the BRETTELL origins is that sometime around 1557- 1568, the family De Breteuille emigrated from two areas of France, Bretagne and Lorrainne, as they were then spelt. My fathers recollection of information which had been passed down through the family was that they as 'Huguenots' they were dealt with harshly by those of the Catholic faith. Dad was always of the opinion that originally they were French nobility, but as the practice was apparently at that time to remove all traces of family lines not considered as 'acceptable'. Little is recorded of the family line prior to the sixteenth century. What is known and recorded is the fact that one branch of the family were renowned for their ability to work with glass, and the other (Bretagne) to work with metals.

from Pubs of the Midlands : Past and Present.

Silver End is the interface between Brierley Hill and Amblecote . An area with a long industrial tradition, it sort of starts at the western end of Delph Road . Many of Silver End's former works may have closed but it remains an industrialised area. The factories were served by both the canal and rail networks - a small station was located near to the old Chain and Anchor works (train buffs can still find old station buildings here in the converted yard). The factories were fuelled by the extensive coal workings on Withymoor south of Silver End. Both clay and coal was mined here. The main road through Silver End is Brettell Lane, part of the busy old ridge road running from Dudley through Brierley Hill and down to the old glassworks industries at Audnam and Amblecote. The road was originally a turnpike and was designated as such in 1727 but was eventually made a 'free' public highway in 1871. Unfortunately, the attractive tollhouse which stood close to the Dudley Arms was demolished in the late 1960's. Whilst it is thought that the road may be named after the Brettell family, it is more likely that it's name is derived from the fact that it passed through Silver End which was once known as Brettell which, in turn, may be a corruption of Bredhulle - an ancient name for the hill or ridge on which Silver End stands. Certainly, the name Brettell (and Bredhulle) has existed in the area for many centuries. Indeed, it is recorded that in the reign of Henry V ( 1413-1422) that a certain J.Bredhull was granted land and buildings in a field called Worthull in Swinford Regis (the parish of Oldswinford extended up to Brettell Lane which acted as a parish boundary). The name Brettell is also thought to be of French origin and can be traced to the Norman family de Bretiuil and Bretteville. The nearby house of the Brettell family was listed in William Camden's 'Britannia' and the glass manufacturer, Thomas Webb, called his Amblecote ironworks the Bretwell Ironworks.

Bretelle poster
And, if there is no French connection at all,
what is the meaning of this?

http://dictionary.reverso.net/french-english/bretelle
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bretelle

Other Interesting(??) Links:
Brotherhood of 'The Strap'
http://www.chateaux-france.com/breteuil?l=fr