The History of the Pratley Surname
The First Pratley
The origins of the Pratley surname are clear to see, but not so easy to explain.
The very first Pratley was originally William Spratley, who came to Leafield,
Oxfordshire from a town near Banbury in around 1620. During his life in
Leafield, the surname in the records fluctuates between Spratley and Pratley, but
after his death in 1660, the family permanently took the surname Pratley.
The change in surname from Spratley to Pratley is likely to be due to an old
linguistic habit of adding and dropping 'S's to the start of words beginning with a
consonant. (For instance, Bridlington used to be known as "Spridlington", and
Nottingham was originally "Snotingaham".) There were many Pratt families in and
around Leafield, so the locals may have assumed that "Pratley" was a more likely
surname than "Spratley". But of course, this is just guesswork!
What we'll probably never know is why William should have decided to come to
Leafield, a small village surrounded by forest, with a poor water supply and
inhabitants with a reputation for lawlessness and independence. But come he did,
and within two hundred years the Pratleys made up almost a quarter of the village,
by far the largest percentage of any surname.
William's Spratley Ancestors
The origins of the Spratleys in Oxfordshire are rather reminiscent of William's
story. The first Spratley in Oxfordshire was originally Thomas Sprotley, who came
to South Newington, Oxfordshire from Maids Moreton in Buckinghamshire in around
1540. For the next fifty years, the surname in the records fluctuates between
Sprotley and Spratley, but settles down by around 1600 to permanently become
Spratley.
This time, however, the shift in surname wasn't just isolated to this branch of
the family. The remaining Sprotleys in Buckinghamshire, as well as the Sprotleys in
London and the traces of the family in the north of England, had all became
Spratleys by the mid-late 1500s. Was this "The Great Vowel Shift" in practise, or
just a dialectal interpretation (after all, even nowadays "cross" is pronounced more
like "crass" in Buckinghamshire)?
The Sprotleys hadn't been long in Buckinghamshire before Thomas had left - in
his father's time, there had been only a small handful of Sprotley households
scattered in the villages around Buckingham. Prior to this, the surname had been
firmly rooted in Yorkshire, most heavily in the area around Beverley. Sprotleys had
been Governors of Beverley, and responsible for the upkeep of the Minster there,
with some in the Church in the surrounding area. Just south-east of Beverley is the
village of Sproatley (then called "Sprotley"), where the holders of the surname had
originated.
The fortunes of the Sprotleys don't seem to have held - by the sixteenth century
they had all but disappeared from Yorkshire (whether through plague, or from having
too many members of the family in the Church!), and the majority of the family was
now in Buckinghamshire. They were no longer focal members of a town community,
though they were better off than most (paying more tax than others, making wills,
and holding positions of note in the places where they lived). Thomas himself was
churchwarden of South Newington, though it would be a few more generations before
his descendants would hold such posts again.
William's Pratley Descendants
The first few generations of Pratleys are easy to trace from parish registers and
wills. William married twice, producing a dozen children, four of whom were boys
who went on to continue the Pratley line. After a few generations, each branch of
the family became quite distinct - not only were Pratleys marrying other Pratleys,
but Pratley gamekeepers were arresting Pratley poachers! But it was still more than
a hundred years before more than a few Pratleys left Leafield and started families
in other villages.
By this time they filled all strata of working society - from paupers living on
parish relief to farmers of a couple of hundred acres. At first they migrated to
neighbouring villages and counties, but with the advent of the railways, and a
couple of notable events in Pratley history, they spread across England and off to
America, Australia, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand.
Today there are more than a thousand Pratleys around the world - not a large
number as surnames go, but not bad for just three hundred and fifty years! And
there are still Pratleys living in Leafield today, all these years after William
first arrived.