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Origin / History of the Lea Name

This famous name, recorded as Lee, Lees, Lea, Leas, Lease and Leese is of Olde English origin.  It is usually locational and derives from any of the places named with the pre-7^th Century element ‘leah’. This translates as ‘an open place’ in a forest or wood, but may describe a water meadow.  Examples of the place names include Lee in Buckinghamshire and Hampshire, and Lea in Cheshire, Lincolnshire and Wiltshire.  The name may also be topographical, for someone who lived at a clearing or pasture, as in the surname 'Atlee'.  The name is one of the earliest recorded, and includes: Ailric de la Leie, c1148, in the ‘Charters of Northamptonshire’; Turqod de la Lea, in the 1193 Pipe Rolls of Warwickshire; Roger de Lees of Norfolk and Richard de la Lee in the 1272 Hundred Rolls of Wiltshire; and Robert Leese in the Wills Register of the county of Cheshire in 1593.  Examples from church registers include: John Lee, who married Agnes Masset in London, 1550; and Anne Lease, a widow, who married William Sulham, also in London in 1577.  Sir Henry Lee was the master of the ordnance and personal champion to Queen Elizabeth from 1559 to 1590, it is also noted his son took over the role on his father’s death.

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