This one-name study aims to pull together as much information as possible on the family name and the wider Melhuish family. I hope everyone with a Melhuish interest will gain something from it and may also be able to contribute new information to it.

The spelling Melhuish seems to have remained largely constant since about 1500. However we assume that Mellhuish, Melluish, Meluish and Mellish are all fairly modern variants.

Before 1500 there are some pretty wild spelling variants: Melhuishe, Melhuyshe, Melhewishe, Melhewish, Melhushe, Melewis, Melehewis, Melhywys, Melehywis, Melhyws and Melhuwysshe.

Melhuish is a toponymic surname, meaning it derives from a certain place. In our case that is Melhuish Manor, now Melhuish Barton, near Tedburn St Mary in Devon. It is recorded in the Domesday Book as Melewis.

Back in the mid-18th century, Roger Melhuish Esq owned Northam Manor and a great deal of land around Northam and Witheridge. In order to raise money, Roger disposed of Northam Manor and a great deal of other property on a  lease to run for 200 years from the death of his son William. As his son died in 1770, the lease expired in 1970, and the land was due to revert to his heirs. This caused a great deal of both worry and excitement in the town of Appledore in the 1960s.

Melhuish is the 5480th most common name in England, with a frequency of 1 in 43,000. It occurs with similar frequency in Australia and New Zealand, is even rarer in the USA and Canada but (oddly) is about 1 in 20,000 in Wales.

Being of Devon origin, the Melhuish name occurs most frequently in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. There are also significant occurrences in South Wales and London.