The Other Somervilles

Some branches of the Devon Somerwill family adopted the Somerville spelling, or had it imposed upon them. If your connections are with Somerville and Devon, you will probably find your origins on this website. But there are other Somervilles who are of a different family, and if your origins are in Scotland or Ireland, you may be descended from them—in which case this website is unlikely to be of any use to you.

Walter de Somerville is supposed to have been a Norman who come to England with William the Conqueror. His name is probably derived from the village of Sémerville in Normandy. The family held lands at Wicknor in Staffordshire certainly from 1164 onwards and a younger branch of the family acquired an estate at Aston Somerville in Worcestershire, where an ancient, much defaced effigy of one Lord Somerville remains. When the male line at Wicknor failed in 1356, the baronetcy and inheritance passed to a branch of the family living at Edstone in Warwickshire. In 1583 John Somervill of this Warwickshire family was involved with members of the Arden family in an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I (the Somervilles having Roman Catholic sympathies). Edward Arden was "hanged bowelled and quartered" at the Tower of London for his treason; Somervill escaped that fate by strangling himself the night before his execution. John's younger brother, Sir William Somerville, managed to retain the lands at Edstone and Aston, though another part of the estates near Solihull was forfeited to the Crown.

One branch of this family survived at Lynton on the Scottish border until the 18th century. The title passed back and forth between Scotland and Worcestershire until it became extinct in 1870 on the death of the 19th Baron Somerville at Aston Somerville. Their descendants can also be found in northern England, London, and overseas.

Many Somervilles in Scotland and Ireland are descended from this noble family. The only Devon connection I can find is that briefly in the late 18th century the 16th Baron, John Southey Somerville, inherited the manor of Exbourne through his mother, Elizabeth Cannon Lethbridge, who was born in Pilton, but there is no evidence of any Somervilles being born there. There was also a family of Somervilles in Stoke Damerel (Devonport) who served in the Royal Navy, who mysteriously appear from nowhere in the 18th century (Group F in this family tree).

As you will find in the Family Story page of this website, the evidence points to the Devon and Somerset Somerwills/Somervilles/Somerfields etc having their origins in Saxon England before the Norman Conquest. These are the ones on this website. We are a quite different family from the Scottish Somervilles, though the Somerville spelling has been adopted by some branches of our Somerwill family.

For more information about the Scottish, Staffordshire and Worcestershire Somerville family, look at Somerville websites, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Somerville

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