Welcome to the One-Name study of Hookham

The aims of this study are to collect all instances of the name Hookham and variants globally. To then reconstruct family pedigrees, see how families have moved around over time and finally to preserve this information for the future and to assist others with their family history. The study is well underway but by no means complete!

Whilst I was born in England I now reside in Australia. I have been doing my family history for over 20 years, but only relatively recently taken a more serious approach. I have also studied my partners family history from Italy and Armenia. I have experience in researching in the UK, Australia, Italy and to a small extent in Egypt, Turkey and Armenia. 

I am a member of the Genealogical Society of Victoria, Society of Australian Genealogists, Oxfordshire Family History Society, Gloucestershire Family History Society and my local society - Mornington Peninsula Family History Society.

I am in the process of setting up a DNA project for Hookham with the Guild.

I would love to hear from any Hookham's and share information.

I am also including the variants HOOKAM and HOOKEM. Hookam is rarely found today but there are still a few Hookem's, mainly from Yorkshire. The variants HOCKHAM and HOLKHAM are not included as I feel they are  surnames in their own right.

There are many deviants of the name particularly as we go back in time. Whilst I am collecting and analysing these I am not including them in my data unless I can show a definite link to a family where the name Hookham dominates.

Consensus is that this is a geographical name in origin. According to www.Forebears.io  all geographical names are Old English or Old Norse and those ending in -ham are more likely to be Saxon and are found mainly in Norfolk,Cambridgeshire, Essex, Surrey and Sussex.

However is it :

a) Topographical - from a lost or unidentified place  e.g. Middle English  HOKE = hook shaped  + HAM(E) = water meadow hemmed in by land.  Old English = HŌC + HAMM

or

b) Locational - derived from the locality of HOCKHAM a parish in Norfolk.

Notable people with this surname are:

Thomas Hookham - Bookseller, London (ca. 1739-1819)

John Hookham Frère - English Diplomat and Author (1769-1846)

William Hookham Carpenter - British Antiquary and Keeper of the Prints at the British Museum (1792 - 1866)

Margaret Evelyn Hookham aka Margot Fonteyn - Prima Ballerina (1919-1991)

Susan Kathryn(Shenpen) Hookham - English Buddhist Teacher (1946 - )

Hookham is not a common surname. According to Forebears.io - it is 370,695th in the world! (2014)

It appears to originate in the UK but now appears in USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia in significant numbers.

According to the censuses of England and Wales the following definite numbers have been identified by me after close scrutiny:

1841 - 204, 1851 - 231, 1861 - 234, 1871 - 305 and 1881 - 357

According to Public Profiler they note the following incidences:

1851 - 211, 1881 - 331, 1901 - 456, 1911 - 427, 1997 - 302 and 2016 - 324.

I suspect the decline in numbers after 1911 are due to two World Wars and migration.

From a brief analysis of the Censuses of England & Wales the name seems to be roughly in 3 areas:

1. Yorkshire, Lincolnshire with some in Lancashire & Nottinghamshire
2. Gloucestershire,Oxfordshire, Warwickshire - with some in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire.
3. London, Middlesex, Surrey, Kent & Sussex.

From the USA censuses the first recording of a Hookham was in 1820, but they did not become more prevalent until after the 1850's. The 1930 census recorded 188 instances of the name. In Canada migration was much later and the 1931 Census only recorded 33 instances of the name.

Migration to New Zealand started in the 1860's with the first birth of a Hookham being recorded in 1875. 

Australia was earlier - the first arrival in 1816/17 was of the convict Benjamin Hookham and the first recorded birth in NSW in1858.