Bartrop: an unknown connection

The simplest variation of the family name is dropping the letter ‘l’, and all the forms of it except Barltrop and the American Baltrop have this feature: a result of pronunciation. Branches that migrated from Essex, and others which stayed there, are named Bartrop; our records show that all of them had the ‘1’ but lost it.

 However, a large Bartrop family has been in the east Midlands of England for at least four hundred years. After the late 17th century its centre was the Worksop area of Nottinghamshire, spreading into the West Riding of Yorkshire. As early as 1581 a William Barthorpe married at Laneham, near East Retford, and others in this village ap­pear in indexes for the next 150 years. The will of Richard Barthropp, a tailor of East Drayton who died in 1634, is in the Public Records Office.

Over the same length of time there are Bartrop records in Lincolnshire, which adjoins Nottinghamshire. Edmond Barthrop of Hougham, Lincolnshire, left a will in 1580 and the city of Lincoln parish registers have marriages in the early 1600s. Other records are sprinkled over towns and villages in the region.

Although three counties are involved, this family area is comparable in size with north and west Essex, East Retford, Nottinghamshire, is twenty miles from Lincoln; it is eight or nine miles from Worksop, and the same distance from the borders of Yorkshire. A Christopher Barthrup became a freeman of York in 1706.

A conspicuous figure in the group is Jonathan Bartrop, who died in 1691. He was a lawyer of Gray's Inn, London, and had a house in King Street, Bloomsbury, 'wherein I now live'; he bequeathed it to his niece Elizabeth Rainsford of London, and among his other beneficiaries were William Lastor and Francis Porter, two London 'citizens and drugsters'.

However, he belonged to Nottinghamshire. His name appears in land trans­actions in the East Retford district. His will names various cousins and in-laws there, and he left £10 to the poor of East Retford and the same to the poor of South Wheatley. The name Jonathan persists in 18th and 19th-cen­tury records of this family, possibly in honour of him. 

When William and Elizabeth Bartrop went to Ollerton, south of Worksop, in the late 1600s the name was obviously unknown there. The first entry for a baptism in the parish registers gives it as 'Artherup', and up to 1735 it was 'Bartram', 'Barterup' and 'Bartrums'. 

It does not appear in the registers of Worksop itself before the 1680s. In the 18th century the family quickly be­came numerous there. The 1851 census shows at least twelve Bartrop house­holds in the town, all except one of the heads of the families giving Worksop as their birthplace. We have also a transcription of all the Bartrop entries in the parish church registers from 1851 onwards. Many of their descendants are in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and other northern and midlands areas to­day. One member of this Bartrop family was in the Barnsley football team that won the FA Cup in 1912. 

Some have come to London. In 1851 James 'Bartherop', a 46-year-old stonemason, lived at 3 Francis Place, Shoreditch. He stated his birthplace as Yorkshire; presumably he left it as a young man and married in London, as his wife came from Hertfordshire. Later he (or perhaps his son) moved to Edmonton, where his descendants still live. In the same period a branch of the Essex family, also calling themselves Bartrop, settled in Edmonton) and they too are still represented there.  We do not know what earlier records of the Bartrops of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire may exist. Without doubt they are of the same family as the subjects of this book; the common source of both groups has yet to be found.

What is significant is the letter ‘l’. A feature like this is understandably lost, but not acquired. The inference is that the southern family retained the original form of the name they were using it in Essex and London in the 1300s and 1400s - while it changed in the midlands group.

Research should reveal more about this. It does not mean that the family belongs to the south and a section of it moved northwards. While that is possible, it would be uncommon; the general tendency has always been the other way round, to move towards London.  It is more likely that the east Midlands were the family's mediaeval home.

This also bears on the name itself. The endings 'thorpe' and 'throp' or 'trop' have similar meanings, an outlying farm or hamlet, but are distinct. According to Dr. Reaney in 'The Origin of English Place-Names'', 'thorpe . . . can be regarded as a test-word for Danish occupation'. The Old English 'trop' or 'throp' (or "trip') is a firm sign that our family name arose in an Anglo-Saxon area. 

In fact, with John Baltrip in 1337 and William Baltrip in 1353 we are not far from the beginnings of surnames. The Lincolnshire Pipe Rolls for the year 1200 have a William de Baretorp, which may be a written rendering of the same name. Thus, the supposed movement away by a member or members of the fam­ily must have taken place in the 13th century or earlier. We should be fortunate if records provided an answer; but it could reasonably be hoped that they would tend to confirm that the two groups had been one - for instance by showing if and when the midlanders used the ‘l’. 

To undertake this research 150 miles from London is not feasible for those who have produced the present family tree. What they hope for is the appearance of an interested Bartrop, whose findings could be linked with theirs.

Grateful thanks go Robert Barltrop for giving permission to use extracts from his publication 'The Bar Tree'

Back to the Top