Grand Union canal bridge, Great Linford
Origin of the name : derived from Amabilis (Latin for friendly), in use in Northern France,
it became Anglo-Saxonised to Mabel as it spread into Cornwall and England beyond, to eg
Mabely, Mapley, Mappeley etc.. Around the time of adoption of surnames, the Norman fashion,
the Hundred Rolls in 1255 and in 1274 listed in Huntingdonshire (Mabil, Mabilie, Mably),
Cambridgeshire (Mabil, Mably, Mabilie, Mabeli) Oxfordshire (Mabely), and Wiltshire (Mabil)
{The Rolls didn't survive for many counties}. Later the name mutated to Mapley in
Buckinghamshire, to Mappley in London, and Mabley elsewhere away from Cornwall. By county :-
The Mapley family spread from Northamptonshire to Hanslope in the mid-1500's, then to Newport Pagnell in the
1590's onwards. The family spread throughout Buckinghamshire to Wavendon to Little Linford, then Great Linford.
Mapleys spread to other local villages like Castlethorpe, (New) Bradwell, Great & Little Woolstone.
A few Mapley families migrated across to neighbouring Bedfordshire, initially to Woburn Sands just south of
Newport Pagnell, but by 1911 only 1 family was registered in Bedfordshire.
Whereas the lace-making industry in Buckinghamshire provided regular employment for the Mapley women, the advent
of the Industrial Revolution, with canal building and coal mining and the expansion of the railways increased labour
and family mobility. For example, Elijah Mapley migrated from Buckinghamshire to Derbyshire for coal mining work
in the 1850/60's, and established a local Mapley presence of many generations thereafter.
Separately, the Mableys were established in Cornwall, either as farmers, sea-farers or trading in cloth and mining.
With the depletion of the mines in the early 1800's many migrated to Canada. The end of the Napoleonic wars,
and the agricultural and industrial revolutions with its mechnisation, caused mass movements of employed people
into the towns and cities. With the advent of the steamship in the 1830's the passage to North America was
reduced from 6 to 1 week, and became scheduled between Liverpool, Halifax and Boston in 1840 via the Cunard Line.
Competitor Collins Line were awarded the contract for New York - Liverpool in 1850, and in the 1870 the White
Star and Inman Lines also joined in the trans-atlantic passages, and emigration became affordable and fast,
particularly supplying America with post-Civil War labour and the opening up of the West with large land grants.
Mapleys are found and named in The Hundred Rolls commissioned by Edward I, in the Posse Comitatus of 1798, and
UK Censuses from 1841 onwards.
© Copyright David Mapley