William Sedgwicke Sr.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Family Origin. There has been much speculation and argument about the derivation of the name Sedgwick, but a picture can be gleaned from various information. Some have concluded that the name derives from the grass "sedge." Others say that it has nothing to do with sedge, as the grass is unknown in the area from which Sedgwicks emanated. I agree with the latter.

The name was apparently "Siggeswick" or "Seggeswick" at some early time. I believe that the single most impoartant piece of evidence we have to support this assertion is a map drawn in the 1600's which shows a village named Seggeswick at the location where the village of Sedgwick is today. Robert Donald Sedgwick of Manchester, England, now living in New Jersey, USA, has that map, and has promised to scan it for us when he can. You can read about it in his message.

This seems to confirm Adam Sedgwick's opinion, which is documented in this letter written by Adam Sedgwick. This letter is often quoted, and is quoted in the two articles by Farancis Morris Sedgwick and Hubert Merrill Sedgwick addressed below.

Francis Morris Sedgwick agreed with Adam Sedgwick, and documented this in A Genealogy of the Sedgwick Family in America since 1635, page 1.

Cambridge, Feb. 26, 1837 Sir;

After an absence from the University of several months I returned to my chambers yesterday, and found your letter on my study table. I first supposed that it might have been there some time, but on looking at the date, I was greatly surprised that it had reached me in little more than three weeks after it had been committed to the post on the other side of the Atlantic. Of your patriarch, Robert Sedgwick, I have often heard, as the active part he took during the protectorate, made him, in some measure, an historic character; and about the same time there were one or two Puritan divines of considerable note and of the same name; but whether or no they were relations of his, I am not able to inform you. The clan was settled from very early times, among the mountains which form the borders of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Westmoreland, and I believe every family in this island of the name of Sedgwick can trace its descent from ancestors who were settled among those mountains. The name among the country people in the valleys in the north of England, is pronounced _Sigswick_, and the oldest spelling of it that I can find is _Siggeswick_; at least it is so written in many of our old parish records that go back to the reign of Henry VIII. It is good German, and means the _village of victory_, probably designating some place of successful broil, where our rude Saxon or Danish ancestors first settled in the country and drove the old Celtic tribes out of it, or into the remoter recesses of the Cambrian mountains, where we meet with many Celtic names at this day. But in the valleys where the Sedgwicks are chiefly found, the names are almost exclusively Saxon or Danish. Ours, therefore, in very early days was a true border clan. The name of Sedgwick was, I believe, a corruption given like many others through a wish to explain the meaning of a name (Siggeswick,) the real import of which was quite forgotten. The word _Sedge_ is not known in the northern dialects of our island, and the plant itself does not exist among our valley, but a branch of our clan settled in the low, marshy regions of Lincolnshire, and seems to have first adopted the more modern spelling, and at the same time began to use a bundle of sedge (with the leaves drooping like the ears of a corn sheaf,) as the family crest. This branch was never numerous, and is, I believe, now almost extinct. Indeed the Sedgwicks never seem (at least in England,) to flourish away from their native mountains. If you remove them to the low country, they droop and die away in a few generations. A still older crest, and one which suits the history of the race, is an eagle with spread wings. Within my memory, eagles existed among the higher mountains, visible from my native valley. The arms most commonly borne by the Sedgwicks, are composed of a red Greek cross, with five bells attached to the bars. I am too ignorant of heraldic terms to describe the shield correctly -- I believe, however, that this is the shield of the historic branch, and that there is another shield belonging to the _Siggeswicks_ of the mountains, with a different quartering, but I have it not before me and do not remember it sufficiently well to give any account of it. All the border clans, and ours among the rest, suffered greatly during the wars of York and Lancaster. After the Reformation they seem generally to have leaned to the Puritanical side, and many of them, your ancestor among the rest, served in Cromwell's army. From the Reformation to the latter half of the last century, our border country enjoyed great prosperity. The valleys were subdivided into small properties; each head of a family lived on his own estate, and such a thing as a rented farm hardly existed in the whole country, which was filled with a race of happy, independent yeomanry. This was the exact condition of your clansmen in this part of England. They were kept in a kind of humble affluence, by the manufactory of their wool, which was produced in great abundance by the vast flocks of sheep which were fed on the neighboring mountains. I myself, remember two or three old men of the last century, who in their younger days had been in the yearly habit of riding up to London to negotiate the sale of stockings, knit by the hands of the lasses of our own smiling valleys. The changes of manners, and the progress of machinery, destroyed, root and branch, this source of rural wealth; and a dismal change has now taken place in the social and moral aspect of the land of your fathers. It is now a very poor country, a great portion of the old yeomanry, (provincially called _statesmen_,) has been swept away. Most of the family estates (some of which had descended from father to son for three hundred years,) have been sold to strangers. The evil has, I hope, reached its crisis, and the country may improve, but it seems morally impossible that it should ever again assume the happy Arcadian character which it had before the changes that undermined its whole social system.

I have now told you all I can compress into one sheet, of the land of your fathers' fathers, of the ancestors of that pilgrim from whom my transatlantic cousins are descended. A few families have survived the shock; mine among the rest. And I have a brother in the valley of Dent, who now enjoys a property which our family has had ever since the Reformation. I fear you will think this information very trifling -- such as it is, it is very much at your service. Believe me, Sir, your very faithful servant,

A. Sedgwick

Hubert Merrill Sedgwick seems to have ultimately believed the "sedge" theory, as documented in New Haven Colony Historical Society MSS B46 Box 14 Folder L sheets 11 and 12. (Be sure to read both pages.) I think he would have swung the other way if he had seen Robert Donald Sedgwick's map.


Here is another account of the possible meaning of the name, from Peter Sedgwick of Sweden. There may be some credibility here; perhaps the English people from whom Hubert drew lacked the insight given by an understanding of the Norse language. ... The name Sedgwick most probably comes from the Norse influence (traders and warriors settled in the north of England around 1100-1200. There are many place and family names (even common words like personal pronouns) which come from the Nordic influence at that time. From my own studies I would rather think that the "wick" portion of the name is derived from the Nordic root "vik" for inlet. This is now a very common part of many names in all Scandinavian countries today; many Swedish names are constructed along the same principles. Thusly, Sedgwick could very well be a name derived from two roots, "sedge" (the marshy grass) and "vik": meaning "sedge-grown inlet" or something like that.

Evidence has been produced that supports the theory that our name was originally spelled "Siggeswick" or "Seggeswick." The village of Sedgwick in Westmorland used to be called Seggeswick. A map from the mid 1600's shows this spelling.

This message was sent by Robert Donald Sedgwick of New Jersey to Nicky Cunningham on April 12, 2001. Mr Sedgwick has agreed to scan the map when he can so we can all see it.


My name is Robert Donald Sedgwick and I was born in Manchester, England on 4 May 1936. I now live in the USA but have accumulated some passing knowledge of the sedgwick family history.

I was interested to see the letter from Professor Adam Sedgwick suggesting that the original spelling was Siggeswick that was later corrupted, in Lincolnshire to Sedgwick. I have some evidence that a corruption did occur. While traveling in the county of Westmorland in the early 1960s I came upon a village called Sedgwick. It is shown on the Ordnance survey maps a few miles due south of Kendal and is on the east side of the main road. The village had a building that I believed dated from the 1600s and was called Sedgwick Hall. It was at the time of my visit being used by the County as a residential school for boys who were in need of care and it did not appear to be accessible to the public. I have never had an opportunity to revisit since that time.

However a few years later I purchased in Manchester an old map of Westmorland. This map is still in my possession and was made by John Speede (1610 - 1676) a noted maker of English maps. The map shows a village called Seggeswick in the same location as Sedgwick. You will note that it is spelled with an "e" and not an "I" as claimed by Adam Sedgwick. The spelling is very clear, and the seconf "s" is formed as"f" - Seggefwick. I always believed that "sedge" and "wick" were of anglo saxon origin with "Sedge" being a type of moorland grass and "wick" meaning town - much as suggested by Peter Sedgwick of Sweden. My map was originally pages 85 and 86 in Book 1, Chapter 43 - Westmorland in an Atlas I believe to be "The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain."

My Father and several generations before him lived in Cannock in Staffordshire.

Coat of Arms:

This coat-of-arms is one commonly used by Sedgwicks. One Sedgwick who apparently used it was WIlliam Sedgwicke, father of General Robert Sedgwick who emmigrated to Charlestown, Massachusetts about 1635.

The shield is "Or, on a cross gu. five bells of the field." The crest is "A Lion Passant through sedge on cap of maintenance."

The lion is red, the sedge green, the crown of the cap is red and the ermine trim white. The shield is gold with a red cross. The five bells are gold.

The motto is "Confido in Domino" which is Latin and means "Trust in God."

Sources:

The General Armory Burke's Peerage, Limited : SEDGEWICK (Co. Lancaster) : "Or. on a cross gu. five bells of the field"

SEDGEWICKE (Wisbeach, Isle of Ely) : "Ar. on a cross gu., five bells of the first"

(or. = gold, argent = silver, gules = red)

Heraldic Journal : The arms of the widow of John Leverett : 1st argent , a chevron between three leverets, sable, impaling, 2nd, gold on a cross gules, five bells argent. The arms impaled are certainly those of Sedgwick, Leverett married Sarah Sedgwick. Sarah Sedgwick the daughter of General Robert Sedgwick. Sedgwick.org note: Sarah Sedgwick who married John Leverett was a sister of Robert Sedgwick

William married Unknown.