This surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name from a place in the parish of Ticehurst, Sussex, originally called "Passelewe" but now known as Pashley. The name derives from the Olde English pre 7th Century personal name "Poecca" or "Pacca", of uncertain origin, plus the Olde English "leah", a clearing in a wood. The surname is first recorded in the latter half of the 13th Century, (see below). One, Robert de Passelegh appears in "Feudal Documents of Sussex", dated 1303, and an Edmund Passeleye (witness), in the 1314 "Assize Court Rolls of Kent". On September 29th 1642, William, son of Andrew Pashley, was christened at St. Giles Cripplegate, London. Robert Pashley (1805 -1859), barrister and traveller, published "Travels in Crete" (1837), subsequent to his tours of Asia Minor, Crete and Greece. A Coat of Arms granted to the Pashley family is a purple shield with a gold lion rampant; another crowned silver. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Robert Passelewe, which was dated 1273, in the "Hundred Rolls of Norfolk", during the reign of King Edward 1, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 - 1307. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as 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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