This unusual name is well recorded back to at least Elizabethan times, and is believed to be a 'London' form of the Medieval English 'Shingle'. This itself is a developed form of the Anglo- Saxon pre 8th Century 'Scinglen', a metonymic name for a maker or seller of a special wood tile much used in South East England for roofing. In the modern idiom the surname has several spelling variants including Skingle, Skingell, Skinglee and Skingley. The name is most popular in the East London area, the first recording in County Kent being that of John Skingle, a witness at Bearsted Church on August 16th 1605. The name spellings include such variants as Joseph Skingell (1616), Clemence Skyngle (1617) and George Skinglee of London (1713). The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of John Skingle, which was dated 30th September 1599, who married Christiana Fletcher at St. James Church Clerkenwell, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, known as 'Good Queen Bess', 1558 - 1603. 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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