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BEGINNINGS
Readers of the inimitable Alice books will remember
Humpty-Dumpty's dissatisfaction with the heroine's name--"With a name like
yours you might be any shape almost"--and it is doubtful whether the great
philologist would have viewed the name of "Jesper" with any greater favour.
Unlike the majority of surnames it does not appear to be derived from the
occupation, domicile, personal appearance, parentage, or attributes of
its original holder, and we must confess we have failed to trace its etymology.
We have abundant evidence, as will appear hereafter,
that the original form of the name was "Jasper," but this brings us no
nearer to an explanation of its meaning. Dr. Henry Bradley, of Oxford Dictionary
fame, perhaps the greatest authority on such matters in the country, kindly
wrote, in response to my enquiry:--
".......The one thing that does seem certain is that the surname Jasper comes from the Christian name Jasper, formerly rather common, and even now not quite out of use. But the origin of this Christian name itself is obscure. It might have originated as a French Dialectal form of Gaspar, as in Central French G before A normally becomes J, while in other dialects it remains unchanged. But the etymology of Gaspar is not known to me. It is the legendary name of one of the three Magi (Caspar is a variant), but whether the source of these names is Oriental or Germanic I do not know. It is a commonish name in most countries of Europe--in French Gaspard, in Italian Gaspare, in Spanish Gasparo.
"A Dutch pocket dictionary, in a list of proper names, gives Jaspar and Kaspar as the Dutch equivalents for Jasper. In Denmark Jesper is used as a Christian name and has given rise to a surname, Jespersen...."
It may be added that Dr. Brewer, under the heading
"Magi," gives the meaning of Gaspar or Caspar as "the white one," but Brewer-like
he gives no authority for the statement, nor does he say in what language
the name bears the significance he ascribes to it. There seems to be no
connection with the stone which Hiawatha used for arrow-heads.
Turning from the study of the name to that of its
earliest bearers, the historian is again compelled to admit at least comparative
failure. A wide-spread family legend tells how the first Jasper fled to
England from the Low Countries to escape the persecutions of Alva, how
he settled in Essex at Duton Hill (said to be derived from Dutch-on-hill),
and how his descendants changed the name to Jesper. Alas for legend! Alva
was disporting himself in the Netherlands from 1567 to 1573, and before
the earlier of these dates there were Jaspers in Essex. In the Heraldic
Visitation of that County by Norroy, King of Arms, 1580, it is recorded
that Henry Browne, of Fidelers in Writtle, in the County of Essex, esquire,
of a knightly family, married Mary Haydon, and their daughter Mary (or
Margery) married, firstly Frauncis Jasper, and secondly John Brooke
of Layton in Warwickshire. The John Brooke-Margery Jasper marriage
we were able to date from another source (Alleg. Mar. Lic. Bp. London)
as 1564/5, and there can be no doubt that there were Jaspers domiciled
in Essex prior to the Alva persecution in the Low Countries--we were not
Belgian refugees!
There is still another story of doubtful authenticity to investigate before we emerge from the mists of myth and fable into the clear light of Terewth. It is alleged that we are all descended from a common ancestor with William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. Sir Richard Tangye in "One and All" puts the claim in concrete form: "In this year," he writes, "I married Miss Caroline Jesper, whose ancestor, John Jasper, of Rotterdam, or one of the same name, place, and period, was the maternal grandfather of William Penn." It will be noticed that Sir Richard qualifies his statement to some extent, and recent research has thrown still more doubt upon it. What would seem to be the last word on the subject appeared over the name of Albert Cook Myers in the journal of the Friends Historical Society (Vol.V). We are there told that William Penn's grandfather was John Jasper, not of Rotterdam, but of Ballycase, County Clare, Ireland. His daughter Margaret married, firstly, Nicasius Vanderscure or Van der Schuren, of Kilconry and Parish of Kilrush, County Clare, and secondly, at St. Martin's Church, Ludgate, London, on June 6th, 1643, Captain William Penn, by whom she became mother of the famous Quaker. A further nail is driven in the coffin of the Dutch legend by the fact that the name of Jasper is not to be found in the Records of Rotterdam for the first half of the seventeenth century.
It is easy to see how the statement as to Lady Penn's Dutch origin came to be made. If her first husband was as Dutch as his name would imply, there is little wonder that to the general public his widow would be accounted a Dutchwoman. Writing of her 20 years later (December 28, 1664), Pepys describes her as "a well-looked, fat, short old Dutchwoman," and in doing so he was doubtless voicing the popular conception.
William Penn's grandfather, John Jasper, seems to have been still in Ireland shortly before the Great Rebellion (1641), and must have been a different person from our immediate ancestor, John Jasper, who was then domiciled in Essex. We are, therefore, not descended from William Penn's maternal grandfather, but we may have with him a common ancestor. There are rumours of a Jasper who was a haberdasher at the Court of Henry VIII--not perhaps a very noble avocation for our great progenitor, but there are worse things than haberdashers!
CHAPTER IV-THE CHILDREN OF JOHN
CHAPTER V-THE CHILDREN OF THOMAS