Origins of the Hallam Name & Family
The Oxford Dictionary of English Surnames cites two separate origins for the surname Hallam. The first is from the place Hallam to the west of Sheffield in the West Riding of Yorkshire; the second from the area around Kirk Hallam and West Hallam in southwest Derbyshire. Both of these places are mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086; the former as Hallun and the letter as Halen or Halun.
Both of the above are Anglo-Saxon dative plurals, Hallun meaning 'at the rocks' or 'at the slopes' and Halen meaning 'at the nooks'.
These two separate origins of the Hallam name point to there being two separate Hallam families, one deriving from each place. It is from the ancient place of Hallun near Sheffield that my family takes its name.
The ancient district of Hallamshire, the most southerly part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, grew from this place of Hallun, and covered much of modern-day Sheffield and parts of northern Derbyshire which lie in the Hope Valley. The settlement of Hallam, later Upper Hallam, took its name from this place. In modern usage, Hallam refers to an area that lies in the foothills of the Peak District, to the west of Sheffield, including Hallam Moors.
Among the earliest references to the Hallam family from the Hallamshire area are that of one Adam of Hallam, who in a quitclaim dated 4 Apr 1322 at Bradfield received from Robert son of Henry of Derwent all right and claim to a rent of 4 shillings and 4 pence for a holding in the fields and woods of Ughil. An Adam de Hallum was the first in a list of witnesses to a gift by William son of John de Morton to William his son of land near Bradfield, dated at Brighholmlee on 20 Oct 1328. Perhaps relating to the same Adam of Hallam, on 2 Jan 1330 Richard, son of Robert, son of Donne of Stanyton, granted to Thomas, son of Adam of Hallum, junior, one messuage and one bovate of land which Roger Halle once held in villeinage in the territory of Stanyton.
Another early reference is that of Roger de Hallom, the first in a list of witnesses to a charter, dated 3 May 1337 at Sheffield, concerning a grant by Alice Sikman of Sheffield to Thomas de Ferneus of Walkley of all her tenements in Sheffield. The same Roger de Hallam is also the first in a list of witnesses to a charter dated at Sheffield on 25 Jul 1338, and again as Roger de Hallum on 15 Aug 1338. On 26 Oct 1343 a John de Hallum is the third in a list of witnesses relating to a grant of land in Tickhill.
Around a generation later we find a quitclaim of one John de Hallum of 'Bawnforth' [Bamford] near 'Athersegge' [Hathersage], dated 1381. The accounts of Nicholas Eyre, a prominent quarry owner, from the 1470s refer to "Richard and Martin de Hallum of Hope and Thornhill" and, in 1475, to John of Hallum who was paid for a spindal at Castleton Mill. The Hallam family worked as the Castleton blacksmiths from at least as early as 1475, throughout the 16th century and beyond. By the end of the 16th century the Hallam / Hallom family were well established in the Hope Valley, as evidenced by their frequent occurence in the local parish registers from this time.
Spelling variants of this branch of the family have included Hallam, Hallum/Halum and Hallom, but by the 1800s the spelling of Hallam had become more or less standard, as can be seen in the entries in the various parish registers included on this site.