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The surname THIRSK comes from the town of Thirsk in the old North Riding of Yorkshire. The volume of the English Placenames Society dealing with that part of Yorkshire lists ten variant spellings of the town's name, including Thriske, Thrusk and Treske; it gives the opinion of Professor Ekwall, that Thirsk is an Anglo-Scandinavian form of the Old Swedish word Thraesk (Swedish Träsk), meaning fen or lake. Two Swedish Librarians I met in 1949 both said that the modern Swedish word träsk means marsh not lake, but that in Lapland and the North of Sweden it has the meaning lake, usually with the name of the lake, for example Torneträsk. THE MIDDLE AGES Surnames derived from place-names are seldom found in the places themselves. John or William of Thirsk would only be named in this way after he had left the town, to distinguish him from John the Baker, John the Butcher or William the Smith. It is not surprising then to find that the earliest evidence of Thirsk surnames found in documents is mostly about men and women who lived in the neighbourhood of Thirsk. When trying to trace the history of a family it is a great advantage if the surname is an uncommon one. Because Thirsks are few in number I have taken a note of every Thirsk I have come across. My main source for Thirsks in the Middle Ages has been the printed volumes of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series. In an early Yorkshire charter of the late 12th century, we find Waltero de Tresk mentioned in connection with the church at Downholme, near Richmond. In the 13th century many more names of Thirsks appear in documents relating to places in the old North Riding of Yorkshire, all of them at no great distance from the town of Thirsk. Mary of Tresk was a tenant of land in Sutton, in 1227, probably a mile or two East of Thirsk. William de Threske, a leather dresser of York, was selling land in York in 1272. In the 14th century more and more Thirsks appear in documents and still most of them are connected with places in North Yorkshire. Constance, wife of Thomas the Barber, son of David de Thresk is mentioned in a document about Oulston in the parish of Coxwold. Peter, son of David de Tresk had lands at East Herlsay, near Northallerton. John de Thirsk was one of the Priors at Marton Priory, 20 miles East of Thirsk, in 1359. One Thirsk who went further afield was Robert de Thresk who is described in 1332 as "Procurator at Rome". In the Memorials of Fountains Abbey there were a number of tenants under Fountains named Thirsk in the year 1357 : Robert & Thomas de Thyrsk at Baldersby, Thomas de Thyrsk at Sinderby and William de Thyrsk at Anderby Quernhow - all places in the vicinity of the town of Thirsk. Christian Thresk, the wife of John Thresk, merchant of York, left a will dated 1435. Hugh Thurske is named in a document in Essex, at Great Oakley near Harwich, but it is unusual to find a Thirsk at that time outside the North Riding and the City of York. John Thirsk was a benefactor of the church of St John the Baptist in Hungate, York, in 1466. He received a licence to found a chantry in the church. Reference is made to his three wives. This same John was probably the John, a merchant of York, who held three offices, that of Mayor of York, and Mayor of the Staple of Calais and King's Treasurer there in 1466. He was also Member of Parliament for York in 1448. In view of the state of the roads at that time, it is unlikely that he held these three posts at the same time. Another merchant was Richard Thirsk of Scarborough, whose will is dated 1500. He had property in Bridlington. Robert Thirsk was Rector of Market Bosworth in Leicestershire. He was buried in the church at Thirsk in 1419 where he had founded a chantry. Another holy Thirsk was William, who was ordained a priest at York in 1432. Seven acres of land and an acre of meadow in Sutton are mentioned in a transaction in 1426 between the Abbot of Byland Abbey (Coxwold) and Geoffrey de Tresk and his wife Petronel. THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND THE MOVE SOUTHWARDS In the 16th century Thirsk families begin to appear in the records further South in Yorkshire in the East Riding. The following place-names appear: Huggate (1584), Howden (1557), Little Weighton (1578), Beverley (1571), Kirkella (1579), Faxfleet (1590), Cottingham (1570), Skidby (1582), Walkington (1593). Ralph Thurske was at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, in 1586. He is the only Thirsk listed in Alumni Cantabrigienses up to 1751. He was said to be from Skidby, Yorkshire. The best known Thirsk of the 16th century is without doubt William Thirsk, the penultimate Abbot of Fountains Abbey. Much has been written about him , the fullest account being that in Walbran's The Memorials of Fountains Abbey. William was admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Divinity at the University of Oxford in 1511 and supplicated for that of Doctor of Divinity in 1529. When, on Henry VIII's instructions, Thomas Cromwell began investigating the monasteries, he sent his two agents, Richard Layton and Thomas Legh to find out what was happening at Fountains Abbey. A full transcript of their letter to Cromwell is printed in the Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series volume 48, in which they informed him that they had accepted William Thirsk's resignation. They accused him of selling the gold plate of Fountains Abbey and of entertaining loose women. Later he took part in the Pilgrimage of Grace and was sent to the Tower of London. In May 1537, he was removed to Tyburn along with Sir John Bowmer and others. There they were hanged and beheaded - in the words of the chronicle "hongyd, heddyd and quarterd." In their letter to Cromwell the agents described William as a "vary foole and a miserable idyot". These reports were probably exaggerated. Henry VIII was determined to destroy all the monasteries and reasons had to be found. THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES The slow and steady moves to the South-East of Yorkshire by Thirsk families continued and it is likely that there were only a few families bearing the name. Some are found in York and the occasional Thirsk moved out of Yorkshire. The main movement, however, was towards the East Riding and Hull. This movement Southwards was inevitable. To the North were the wildernesses of the North Yorkshire moors and the Cleveland hills, where little work would be found. To the South were only the gentle slopes of the Wolds and the flat land of Holderness. Here the families spread rapidly, finding work other than farm labouring. In Beverley there was a flourishing export trade in wool. Hull was becoming an important port, with ships arriving from all parts of Europe. The three parishes most frequently mentioned in documents relating to Thirsks in the 17th and 18th centuries are Skidby, Walkington and Cottingham. These three villages are close together - all within a circle four miles in diameter. Not many families appear in other parts of Yorkshire, other than the East Riding. One appears in Burton Leonard, near Ripon, one in Bingley, NW of Bradford, and another in Braithwell near Doncaster. However, by the end of the 17th century, most of the Thirsk families had settled in the East Riding and mainly in the Southern half of the Riding. A Thirsk who had reached the City of Hull by 1655 was Robert Thruske, sword cutler, who was renting a room or shop in the Butchery and lying "under the Townes Hall". A notable Thirsk of the 18th century was Henry, a mason. Payment was made to him in 1729 for four Corinthian capitals at the Mansion House, York. In the 1730s he completed some stone carving, including the stone doorcases at the Assembly Rooms, York. James Thirsk held the post of Parish Clerk for many years until his death in 1792. The above written byJames Wood Thirsk