Recorded as Allwood, Hallwood, Hailwood and Halewood, this is a famous English surname. It is locational from the town of Halewood in the county of Lancashire. The placename is first recorded as 'Halewode' in the year 1260, and means 'the wood by the land in the bend of the river', from the Old English pre 7th century word 'halh' meaning a piece of flat land formed by the bend in a river and 'wudu' - a wood. Locational surnames are either thoise given to the original lord of the manor and his descendants or more usually are 'from' names. That is to say names gievn tio people as easy identifcation, after they left their original homes, to move somewhere else. In this case the name development has included: Halwoode in Lancashire in 1595, Hallwood in Cheshire in 1603, and Allwood in Lancashire in 1792. Early examples of the surname recording taken from early surviving church registers include those of John Halewood of Childwall, Lancashire, on February 2nd 1558, and Henry Hailwood who married Ellen Parker, on December 1st 1614, at Aughton by Ormskirk, also in Lancashire. The late Mike Hailwood was the world champion motorcyclist in the 1960's. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was sometimes known as the Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop," often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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