The image you see here is the Eardley Family crest from approximately 1450. The slogan 'Non Nobis Solum' means 'not for ourselves alone', indicating selflessness.
The three gold wheatsheaves on an azure chevron indicate early association with the Earls of Chester, who were granted lands in the North Staffordshire and Cheshire areas by William the Conqueror as reward for help with the Conquest.
It is likely that Eardleys were on the land before the Normans. The wheatsheaves refer to the rural nature of the area. The red and gold fretty are the arms of Audley, shown on a canton like this, indicating subservience to the powerful Marcher Barons of that name
A good illustration of how we can work backwards in time towards the origin of a rare name is provided by the surname Eardley, which is derived from Eardley Hall or the nearby hamlet of Eardley End in Audley parish, north Staffordshire, not from Eardisley in Herefordshire. The local pronunciation sometimes turned the name into Yeardley, thus occasionally causing confusion with the surname Yardley, which is derived from a place-name in Worcestershire (and possibly from similar places in Northamptonshire and Essex). The deaths of sixty-five Eardleys in England and Wales were registered in1842-46. Forty-four of these were from registration districts in Staffordshire, particularly those of Wolstanton, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent, which surrounded the place from which the surname was derived five or six hundred years earlier. In the Staffordshire hearth tax returns of 1666 fourteen households of Eardleys were recorded, one from Cheadle and the rest from Pirehill Hundred (which covered north-west Staffordshire), including four from Audley township where the name originated. The lay subsidy returns of 1332-33 recorded a William and two Johns or Erdele in the parish of Audley, but we cannot be certain that the surname had become hereditary by then. It is perfectly clear from this enquiry into past distribution patterns of the name, working backwards in time, that Eardley is a distinctive north Staffordshire surname.
An Eardley 'family get together', organized by Robert Jack Eardley of Lexington, Kentucky, was held at noon on Saturday 15 July in the year 2000, starting with a service at St James Church, Audley, with a special address by the vicar. Three families of Eardleys held pews in the church in 1585. The senior branch were the Eardleys of Eardley Hall, the leading family in the parish in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Eardleys then began to spread into the neighbouring counties of Shropshire, Cheshire and Derbyshire, so that by 1800 they formed about thirty related families, most of whom lived within fifteen miles radius of Audley. Many of them were farmers but by then some were Burslem potters.
Nineteenth-century census
returns record the Eardleys in the northern part of the Potteries or nearby at
Audley, Silverdale, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Wolstanton, Tunstall and Burslem. The
coming of railways and steamships provided opportunities for them to spread
further. It is estimated that the Eardleys now consist of some 2000 families, in
Britain, Canada, the USA, Australia, South Africa, Switzerland, Hong Kong and
Germany. Their story is paralleled by those of many other families.
If you would like printed copies of the crest, or a copy of the artwork, Click Here
Or carry on -