We often get asked about the history of the Willingale name, yet it is something we have done little research on. One commercially produced history of the name is as follows
The origin of this name is medieval German, the derivation being either Villinger, a name found recorded heraldically from the former province of Winter Thur or Willinger, a Bavarian name which also has heraldic and noble ancestry. Over a quarter of a million European emigrees fled to the British Isles between the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and the formation of the German Empire in 1852, and in most cases their names became completely anglicized. In this case the near original spelling has been retained.
Family names as hereditary surnames did not come into general use until after the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Normans introduced National Taxation to England which they called the POLL TAX (Poll = Head), in consequence the need for surnames for identification purposes.
The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Edle Von Willinger, which was dated c.1680 The Kingdom of Bavaria, during the reign of Emperor Leopold I of the Holy Roman Empire 1668-1705.
All surnames of every country have been subject to changes owing to dialect, Civil War, and plain poor spelling.
However we have records that show the Willingale name, or derivations of it, existed in England long before 1680
