Stilwell Family History

Coat of Arms

Coats of arms were developed in the Middle Ages as a means of identifying warriors in battle and tournaments. Nowadays used more to preserve the tradition but is still used for identity purposes.

The Stilwell Coat of Arms shown here is officially documented in Burke's General Armoury.
The original description of the arms (Shield) is as follows:“AR. A BEND NEBULY AZ. BETW. THREE ESCUTCHEONS OF THE LAST, EACH CHARGED WITH AN ESCALLOP OF THE FIRST”

When translated the Blazon also describes the original colours of the Stilwell arms as:“SILVER; A BLUE NEBULY DIAGONAL BEND BETWEEN THREE BLUE SHIELDS, EACH CHARGED WITH A SILVER SHELL” above the shield and helmet is the crest which is described as:

“UPON NATURALLY COLOURED WATER, A NATURALLY COLOURED SWAN HOLDNG A GOLD ANCHOR IN IT'S BEAK”

Notes:
Blazon - a formal description for a Coat of Arms.
Escutcheon - a shield that forms the main or focal element in an achievement of arms.
Nebuly - a line which is drawn and made up of a series of bulbous protrusions, supposedly to resemble cloud.

Origins

The Stilwell/Stillwell name is of Anglo-Saxon origin found mainly in the Southern counties of Hampshire and Surrey.
All true Stilwell/Stillwells are related. As a locational surname, Stillwell or Stilwell derives from a now "lost" place, one of the estimated seven to ten thousand English villages and hamlets known to have disappeared since the 12th Century.

The main reasons for this were natural disasters such as the Black Death (plague) of 1348, in which an eighth of the population perished, and to the widespread practice of enforced "clearing" of large areas of land to create sheep pastures. The place is thought to have been situated in Surrey, and the name means either
"the fish-trap in the stream", derived from the Olde English pre 7th Century "stiell, staell", place for catching fish, and "well, waell", stream, spring, well.

It is possible that the original spelling was Stylewell, and means "pure spring" and is named after natural springs in the area of Bowlhead Green in Thursley. near Godalming in Surrey, England and it is these springs that gave the name “High Stylewells” to the area of Bowlhead Green in Thursley which settled as “High Stilwells by the 1600s.
High Stilwells (the above spelling was from earlier centuries) was the name of the area to the centre and north of modern Bowlhead Green, Thursley, Surrey, with Nether Stilwell in the valley below the village. High Stilwells is mentioned in a number of legal documents from the 16th century regarding property in the northern side of the village now known as Bowlhead Green. The earliest reference has been traced back to a Richard de Stylewell in a record from 1235. It was initially believed that "High Stilwells" was the early name covering the whole of the current hamlet of Bowlhead Green, but is now considered to cover a few farms and homesteads mainly to the north (including Lower House). The hamlet has a number of springs, brooks and streams that now all feed into artificial lakes in the valley below that were created on the Witley Estate by developer J Whitaker Wright in the late 1800s. The first record of the name “Stilwell” is in 1235 in the Godalming Court records where a “Ricardus de Stiyelewell” is mentioned.It is assumed that a Stilwell travelled from the Thursley/Witley area in the late 1400's or early 1500's, following a marriage to a Dorking lady. This can be surmised as the family is recorded as owners of a house and woodland in the 1500's and it is unlikely that the family at that time would have been able to afford to purchase or rent property of this size or value. The Dorking family were more close-knit than the Thursley branch, and seemed to prosper in a relatively small area. They were mainly woodsmen and lumber merchants in the 1500 and 1600s (and became relatively wealthy selling the timber) but eventually became Navy Agents and Merchant Bankers in London.
Later records for the name up to the early 1500's are all in the same area. From 1515, baptisms of Stilwells are also recorded in nearby Dorking, The first record of a Stilwell in the Dorking area is a baptism in 1515 of a John Stilwell. He was the first of seven children but, unusually, the parent’s names are not recorded on the parish records for any of these baptisms.

The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Elyzabeth Styllwell, which was dated April 14th 1542, christened at Headley, Hampshire, during the reign of King Henry VIII, known as "Good King Hal", 1509 - 1547.

Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax.
Fortunately, the baptism/marriage/burial records for Dorking are complete so the rest of this family line is very accurately traced right through to the present day and this branch of the family grew in the area and ultimately became successful.

Almost all the records up until 1600 are for families in Surrey. There are a few families just across the county borders in Hampshire and Sussex and two families in Holborn, London (who originally came from Dorking).

Most of the historical facts on this website have been provided by Martin Stilwell. My personal thanks to him for allowing me to use them on this family website.