This unusual surname is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a locational name from any of the various places so called in Lancashire, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire, which derive their name from the Olde English pre 7th Century "scyttel(s)", bar, bolt, with "worth", enclosure; hence, "enclosure made of bars of a certain kind". Shuttleworth in Bury, Lancashire, was recorded as "Suttelsworth" in the 1227 Feet of Fines for that county, and as "Shitleswurth" in the 1246 Assize Court Rolls. Locational surnames were originally given to the lord of the manor, or as a means of identification to those who left their place of origin to settle elsewhere. The surname first appears on record in the mid 13th Century (see below). The Shuttleworths of Shuttleworth Hall, in the Parish of Whalley, Lancashire, were in residence there as early as 1329, when Henry de Shuttleworth "died seised of it and eight oxgangs". His son, Ughtred, lived at Gawthorpe, near Burnley, Lancashire, and Ughtred has survived as a popular given name in this family into modern times. One Thomas Schytylworth was noted in the Corpus Christi Guild Records of Yorkshire, dated 1477. A Coat of Arms granted to the Shuttleworth family is a silver shield, with three black weavers' shuttles tipped and furnished with quills of yarn, the threads pendant gold. A cubit arm in armour proper grasping in the gauntlet a shuttle of the arms is on the Crest. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Henry de Schutlesworth, which was dated 1246, witness in the "Assize Court Rolls of Lancashire", during the reign of King Henry 111, known as "The Frenchman", 1216 - 1272. 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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