Sauce for the Goose

 

 

There was a recent exchange on the internet concerning the PERRIN surname. I, like many others, instantly think of LEA & PERRINS sauce when the surname is used and have often wondered who they were. The story goes that Worcestershire sauce itself is of cross-cultural origins.  In 1835, Lord Marcus SANDYS, who was the ex-governor of Bengal, approached chemists John Wheeley LEA and William PERRINS, whose business in Broad Street, Worcester, handled pharmaceutical's and toiletries as well as groceries.  He asked them to make up a sauce from a recipe which he brought back from India.  While his lordship was apparently satisfied with the results, Messrs LEA and PERRINS considered it to be an "unpalatable, red-hot fire-water" and left the quantity they had made for themselves in the cellars. During the stocktaking and spring clean the following year, they came across the barrel and decided to taste it before discarding it.  To their amazement, the mixture had mellowed into an aromatic, piquant and appetizing liquid.  They hastily purchased the recipe from Lord SANDYS and, in 1838, the Anglo-Indian LEA & PERRINS Worcestershire sauce was launched commercially.  So now you know.

The surname PERRINS has a number of origins and all the spellings interchange with each other so that the only way to find the exact origin is to follow the line back to its beginning. The various spelling of PERRIN, PERRON and PEROWNE are respectively the diminutive of the French Perre (Peter) and this works with the various endings such as –in, -el or –un and appears in PARRELL and PERRIN. The name PEROWNE belongs to the Huguenots. A Lincolnshire example is that of Geoffrey PERRUN who was linked to the Templars in 1185.

Lincolnshire has its own origin for LEA. With the various spelling of LEE, LEIGH, LYE and LAYE one can assume that there are numerous beginnings for this surname. A search through any gazetteer gives you any number of villages that include the surname. The Old English word leah was used for one who dwells in the area by a wood or in a clearing. The same word by the time of the Middle English became leye or lye and it is from this that some of the other variations come. The same origin, same meaning but of a later date.

I have received an e-mail from Cynthia TUPHOLME in Canada. Further to her request last week on the surname it seems from her email that it was just one family that had left Lincolnshire years ago and settle in the Ontario area. This is another of those instances where history comes full circle. Tupholme was the island of sheep down in the fens originally. Cynthia and her family "live on one of the most amazing islands in the world, known for it's quality of lamb and we are breeders of registered Suffolk sheep!" If TUPHOLME is your name then get in touch with your long lost cousins at www.geocities.com/cerdinen4stock/

 Bits and Bobs

Lincoln Lindsey Petty Sessions 2 May 1851 - Hannah DENMAN, of Torksey, applied for an order of affiliation on Alfred DALTON, of Wiseton, Notts: the frail fair one, however, admitted that her favours had been bestowed on three different men; and one wit said, "Thou knowest, Hannah, thou was very enticing, and that he did not know that the child was not his".

Anne on the 'net.