Pearsall Book vol. I; pg.23

From what has been said in connection with the arms it is quite evident that the real name of the family is Wolf, changing from Rognvald, the Wolf, in Norway to the Latin Lupus, in Normandy. When the Normans went to Normandy they adopted the French system of calling themselve de or of the lace which they held in feudal service to the Duke of Normandy. Here Rollo became duke and our family name was changed to de Normandi. And, as we have seen, our later ancestor came to be Count of Corbeil, so that therby we were de Corbeil. The Countship of Mortaigne does not appear to have remained long enough in the family to have affected our name. Then came the emigration to England.

Our ancestor had the Norman dislike of the barbarous English place names, so the next generation called themselves son of, or Fitz; therefore in our case the name was rendered as Robert Fitz-Gilbert de Corbeil. The next generation saw a marriage with a daughter of the Northumbrian royal family and almost unconsciously the son of Fitz-Gilbert became de Lumley and his father having acquired and given him Peshale, he became likewise de Peshale. In those days men had as many de or of names as they held manors. The name Peshale, as a family name, had its beginning in Robert the son of Robert Fitz Gilbert de Corbeil as he was the first to call himself de Peshale. He was also de Lumley. It was not until the second generation after, that the de Lumley was dropped as Robert de Peshale de Lumley had a son John was had the same surnames. Peshale always was a divided manor; there was a part of it held of the Bishops of Chester and John de Peshale de Lumley also acquired Swinnerton by marriage with the daughter and heir of Fitz Alan. It happend that John de Peshale had several sons. To his son Robert he gave Swinnerton when he married the heiress of Suggenhulle and Bishops Offey, so that Robert became de Suggenhulle de Swinnerton, names which of course remained with his children, and they became the ancestors of the Swinnertons and Sugnals.

The Peshale manors were divided by John as follows: to his son William he gave half of the manor held of Robert de Toesni de Stafford; to his son Roger he gave the other half; to his son John he gave the Bishops manor of Peshale. In later generations part of the Bishops Manor came to John Swinnerton, grandson of Robert de Swinnerton de Suggenhulle, by purchase from Dorothy Peshale, great-grand-daughter of John de Peshale, and her husband William de Fisher, de Suggenhulle, de Peshale. Roger's descendants appear to have gone away from Staffordshire, but they continued to call themselves de Peshale, although they sold their interest in the Stafford manor of Peshale to William or his descendants. The part of the manors vested in William was divided between his sons Stephen and Walter. Stephen's share was conveyed by his son Robert to the same John de Swinnerton who had married his, Robert's sister and heir, Eleanor de Peshale. A part of the other half descended to Adam de Peshale, grandson of Walter, who married Alice, daughter of the same John de Swinnerton and his wife Eleanor de Peshale. She brought as her marriage protion, her father's holdings in the Peshale manors, and thereby part of the Bishops manor and a large share of the other manor of Peshale came to be vested in the heirs of this Adam de Peshale. It is from this Adam de Peshale that we descend. He is descended, as we have seen, from Robert de Peshale who married Ormunda de Stafford about 1130, and this Robert was the first to call himself de Peshale, where our family name had its beginning.

Pg. 29
When the cockney Englishman removed from Staffordshire to other parts of the British Isles, the spelling of his name in the way that was peculiar to his old home locality received in the new place an entirely different rendering of its sound value according to the letters that formed the elements making his family name. Hence the appelation by which he was known underwent a material change either in spelling or in the pronouncing of this surname; in some instances it no doubt was not only changed as to the letters making up the same but he thereby acquired an almost entirely different surname. As a consequence, were it not for the records fixing this ancestry and the arms they severally carry on their shield, it would not be possible to trace their ancestry to the Staffordshie beginning in the old common and original family name. Those who have given much study to the subject of changes in our surname say that from time to time, before the fifteenth century, branches of our family settled in Cheshire, Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hertford, Derby and elswhere in England and that as consequence the family name in these localities was changed to Pashley, Purslow, Passelew, Passal, Pesenschale, Peschale, Purshale, Pascal, Porselly, Pursley, Passaley, Pursel, Pexsall and other like spellings. Andunless one were accurately conversant with the dialects then current in these several locatlities they could not be able to say at all positively the exact values, if any change in the sound, which was thereby brought about in the family name. But nevertheless at the end of this same period of three centuries, since our surname was assumed by our ancestor because of the name of the manor which he held in staffordshire, the only variation of this name that had occurred in the old home locality was to change the spelling from Peshale to Peshall. It would seem therefore that it would be certain that our family name had by this time become fixed and unchangeable.

If however there came a time when the family for any reason desired to change the spelling of their surname and yet keep the old appellation, then the natural sequence of change would be to add an r so as to emphasize the long drawn sound peculiar to the first element of the name and to drop the silent h which must have been trying to the sensibilities of their friends who were not cockney Englishmen. It is therefore interesting to notice that this is what actually began to occur among the learned clerks and recorders of public and ecclesiastical records at the end of the fifteenth century. Or more accurately at about 1486, which was the time of the few years which brought to a close the life of Sir Hugh of Horsley who was knighted at Bosworth Field. Henry Harrison who has had access to an old manuscript relating to the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485) gives the following quotation:-

Sir Robert Tunstall a noble knight
And come of Royal ancestrie
Sir John Savage wise and right,
Sir Hugh Persall there was three.
{Percy's Folio MSS. of Bosworth Field.}

The important point to be impressed upon the reader's attention is that all the authorites agree that this change in the way the name was spelled on the public records began contemproary with the close of the life of Sir Hugh of Bosworth Field. We desire also to say that we have approached this remarkable variation in the family name from this point of observation, so as to raise in the reader's mind the inquiry as to why such a change should have come about at all and what could have induced it to have occurred at this particular time after the surname had come to be so well established with the members of the family and why it should have happened in Staffordshire where the name had been known for over three centuries without any material variation. And we have also directed attention in this way to this remarkable occurence because for a long time, before we knew the real underlying reason for this change, we were possessed only of the common information that subsequent to 1486 such a variation did occur in certain Staffordshire localities in the spelling of our surname.

In studying this subject it will be well to remember that no matter which word in the English language one may be considering it is certain that primarily it had its beginning, as an English word, in some historical incident of great or trifling import. Hence it has come to be an axiom arising from the solution of dialectal problems that very much of our history as an English spearking people lies hidden in the words of our daily use. This so far as family history is concerned can be as truthfully said of one's surname. For example, in the present instance it happened that at the Battle of Bosworth Field the family divided in their allegiance between the two claimants to the English throne. At that period there were three different divisions of the family in Staffordshire, namely: those of Horsley and those of Ranton who supported the side of Lancaster. They changed their name so that the Horsley branch was know as Pershall and the Ranton branch as Persall. Whereas the third, or Kinlet branch, who supported the side of York, adhered to the old spelling of Peshall... It is sufficient at this time to point out that it was this historical incident which brought about this change in our surname at this time among those who were connected with the Horlsey and Ranton Branches of the family. Later, when the family at Horsley became very rich from the Virginia tobacco trade, it returned to the spelling Peshall, but this lasted only for the one generation, after which the members of this branch, who were actually residing at Horsley, returned to the spelling Pershall. But before the change had been made to Peshall, one of the members of the Horsley family was engaged in trade in the City of London as a merchant of the Staple and he had widely departed from the Staffordshire spelling of his family name and although he also attempted to adopt the spelling of Peshall when he acquired his wealth from the Virginia tobacco trade, the change could not be made to stick.

The important fact to be remembered in this connection is that the families at Horsley and Ranton from the end of the liftime of Sir Hugh had begun to call themselves Peer-sall (The Horsley folks pronouncing it as though it were written Pier-sall, while the Ranton folks pronounced it as though it were spelled Pear-sall). The continuation of the voiceless h made no difference to the family at Horsley as the cockney English to this day have a strong liking for this much abused and by them little used letter. When a certain one of the Horsley family located in London for the transaction of business, his spelling of his surname received from his neighbors and businness associates an entirely different phonetic value than that to which he had been accustomed in Staffordshire, for by this time the soft English of Kent had become the accepted dialect of the metropolis. This Edmond Pershall thereupon changed the spelling of his surname to Pearsall. Asa merchant of the staple, he was one who dealt in or exported the so-called small staple commodities of England, namely, Wool, Wool Eels and Leather as well as the products of these materials. This trade took him to all parts of England so that he came into contact with the members of the family of the sveral lines which traced their ancestry to the old manor of Peshale in Staffordshire. He entered into this trade some time about 1552, and from that date there came about a disposition on the part of these several families to adopt a common spelling of the family name. It is therefore easy to see why this desire for harmony in the spelling of the family name did not also extend to the members of these several branches who resided in the non-wool sections of England, or whose ancestors having come before this to London they were not brought into contact with Edmond Pearsall either in a business or family way. It also happened, no doubt casually, that all the members of the family who adopted the spelling Pearsall were of the Ranton branch excepting Edmond Pearsall and his sons who were of the Horsley branch of the family.

How uniformly the members of the Ranton branch, who were located in the wool growing and wool manufacturing sections, accepted the new spelling for the designation of their family name, is shown by the work of Henry Hamics, who in his Dictionary, published in 1912, of surnames of England, gives the phonetics and orthography of the family name as Pearsall, Persaul, Persoll, and show no other way of expressing this surname.

The subject of the changes in the spelling of the family name will be more particularly referred to in relating the stories of the several generations of the family in the following history; it will then be possilbe to enter in greater detail into the reasons for the particular incidents to which we can now only briefly refer. But the reader must not lose sight of the important fact that the family in Staffordshire was well satisfied with the original spelling of Peshale, as modified into Peshall, until after the battle of Bosworth Field, and the modification then adopted by the Horsley and Ranton branches of the family continued in some branches of the Ranton family until the present day, and by the home-staying members of the Horsley branch until the male line became extinct. And that those who followed the lead of Edmond Pearsall were engaged either in wool growing or in cloth manufacture. Hence we find that the spelling of Pearsall, among the Ranton branch, is confined to those who at that time lived in or near Hales-owen. Kidderminster and several near by places in Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Salop, and in Toynton in Lancashire.

It must be however kept in mind that this new spelling so far as Edmond Pearsall was concerned did no more than to bring the family name into such form as to express in Middle English the same pronunciation as had been adopted about 1486 by the Horsley branch of the family. For an examination of the records of that time, made by the clerks, especially at Eccleshall as early as 1535, when the system of keeping parish records began, discloses that both the family name and the name of the old village of Peshall, which had grown up on the old manor from which our family name is derived, was spelled as follows:-Pearsall, Pearshall, P'sall, Peashall, Peshall, Persall, Pershall, and Persoll. And the same results would come from an examination of any of the parish records of the places where these Pearsall families resided. For example, in reading the records of the Church of St. Marys at Kidderminster one is struck with the quickness with which the Persall spelling, which they had brought from their old home in the Parish of Ranton, and which they had continued in Hales Owen and elsewhere, became Pearsall as soon as Edmond Pearsall began to visit the locality of Kidderminster in connection with his trade as a merchant of the staple.

In making this change the family as we have said followed the lead set by Edmond the merchant of the staple of London. The Recorder of the Inns of Court and the clerk of the Grocers Guild, as well as Cuthbert Booth, who knew him intimately, record his name the first as Pearsall, and the second as Piersall, while Cuthbert Booth, who had been having the most intimate dealings with him; records in 1612 that Edmond called Pearsall, Pearshall and Persall. And as he spoke in the light of Documents before him, which had actually been signed by Edmond, it also discloses the way that Edmond Pearsall followed before finally settling on the Pearsall spelling. The progress being clearly indicated as that he came to London as Pershall, which he changed to Persall by dropping the h. Then he went to Pearshall thus taking up the beloved h. And finally he came to Pearsall, as he found it impossible to carry the silent h in the language of the London metropolis. Brown in his Genesis of America gives a copy of his signature which reads Edmond Pershall.

The reader should however note that although some of the members of the Ranton branch of the family changed the spelling of their surname to Pearsall, they did not change the articulate utterance for their surname, which they had used since the time of the Battle of Bosworth Field. They still were called Paarsaal, pronouncing the first element-Pear-the same as the name of the fruit, with the long drawl of the cockney English dialect. The last element they sounded the same as the last element in the word--Tattersall. Where by some of their modern descendants are getting a phonetic value very much like the first and last elements in the word--parasol. As a fact, the writer found in Canada a record where a member of the family was recorded as Parasol. It was only a few weeks ago that a member of the family of the Ranton branch now living in England, sent the writer a copy of his book mark in the form of a rebus, wherein he represented the first element of his name by a picture of a pear. On the other hand, Edmond Pearsall not only changed the form of spelling his surname to Pearsall, but he likewise changed the same phonetically to conform to the sound values of the soft middle English dialect. He and his sons and their descendants gave articulate utterance to their surname by sounding the first element-pear-the same as the last element of the old English word appear, or as the clerk of the Grocers guild phonectically expressed it as Pier (sall). the last element of the surname they gave its middle English phonetic value of saull. While now the Long Island and other New York folks, and those who came from that State, all descendants of Edmond Pearsall, pronounce the last element in their family name the same as the last element in the word Tattersall, which strange to say is the name of an English family who likewise originally wrote their name as Tattershall. {Cf also The Century Dictionary and the Century Cyclopedia of Names.}