The earliest Herberts are known from the
Warwick/Leamington Priors area of
Warwickshire, England and at least several generations in the
19th-Century worked in the
furniture trade as upholsterers, gilders,furniture packers and
french polishers.
Joseph Herbert left Warwickshire around 1906 to work as a french
polisher in the, then,
boom town of Blackburn, Lancashire. Joseph was killed towards the
end of the First World
War, leaving a young wife and three children. His daughter, Miriam
and a son, David
survived to adulthood. Miriam's descendants are continued in the
Pickup family line. The
Herberts descendants of David are now scattered in the UK, Europe
and Canada. There has
been a tradition of service in the armed forces by the Herberts
decendants of Joseph for
most of the 20th-Century.
The origin of the name 'Herberts' is uncertain. Before the 1907
marriage of Joseph, all
family records show the name to be the more usual form of
'Herbert' although the records
may not reflect actual spoken usage. There are a number of
possibilities to explain the
modern form with the final 's'. It could be an anglicisation of
the Central European or
Jewish 'Herbertz'although there is no evidence to support this. It
could be a Welsh
patronymic, meaning 'the son of Herbert'. There are pockets of
this name in Cardiganshire.
It could also be a simple clerical error which went uncorrected
due to family dispersal
and early deaths. I personally think that it started as a in-joke
when 'Herbert' was used
both as a surname and (incorrectly) as a middle name name on the
marriage certificate of
1907.
E-mail address: martynpickup (at) aol.com
This data was updated on Friday 4 February 2005
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