Return to Bunt family treeFrom a letter from Eric Frederick Bunt born in 1907 to David Samuel Bunt of Par Cornwall dated 1975. Eric Frederick has researched the Bunt name extensively and has kindly given me permission to publish his results which follows.
The earliest records that I have found are English (as district from Cornish!). Up to now I have not found any reference earlier than 1199/1200. This was a Galfridus Bunt, who apparently lived in Norfolk or Suffolk. His name occurs in the great Roll of the Pipe for the first and second years of King John\rquote s reign, 1199 - 1200. This was a record of taxes levied by John to finance his war in France.
The next date of interest is 1249 , when Richard le Bunt and his brother Rocelyn le Bunt of Wilton Wiltshire appeared before the court at the Wiltshire Eyre of that year, charged with selling cloth contrary to the assize. The following year 1250, Richard Bunt, merchant of Wilton, was paid 42s for cloths sold by him to the King at the fair at St Ives (Hunts).
In 1254 Richard le Bunt and Rocelyn le Bunt were listed as jurors for Wilton. Richard Bunt seems to have been a man of substance in his day! He was Mayor of Salisbury in the 1260s. I could quote you a lot more examples of early (medieval) references to our surname, but there would be little point in it. In general we can say that the name was in the main to be found in southern and eastern England, with pockets in Wiltshire (Salisbury area), Cambridgeshire (Waterbeach area), Norfolk (Marham area) and Suffolk with shattered occurences in Sussex, Surrey and Kent.
The earliest Cornish example is for 1406, when a quit claim was granted by a John Layhein of Cornwall to Joan, wife of John Langortheu, of property in Langhorteu (Fowey) which he had by feoffment of Thomas Bunte. In 1408 a Richard Bunte was granted a pardon of outlawry for not appearing to answer a trespass relating to somewhere in Cornwall. And in 1443 /44 a William Bunte was involved, together with a number of others, in a case involving piracy. A ship called Le Cristoforer, of Brittany, had been taken by Hankyn Selander and its cargo sold to a group of men. Mostly from Fowey and Bodinn ick. William Bunte had a pipe of wine while Thiomas Trefrie of Fowey had a tun of iron worth 100s and 3 tuns of wine.
From the early 16 century onwards to today there have been Bunts in Cornwall, but they seem to have died out in Wiltshire and East Anglia by the next century. At least I have not been able to trace any. From what I have said above it seems clear that Bunt is not a Cornish name, the the sense of being Celtic. What it means is not known. The fact that in several early examples it is prefixed by, such as Richard le Bunt already mentioned and Gervaise le Bunt (Malmesbury Abbey Register c 1300) suggest that it was originally a nick name. The Oxford English Dictionary (complete edition 1961) has no less than eleven entries of the word bunt, etymology unknown. These range from a fungus, the bag shaped swelling of a sail or net, the action of butting or pushing, an instrument for sifting meal and the tail of a hare or rabbit! It is not even clear whether it is a Saxon word or Norman-French. My own theory is that it is related to the idea of swelling or blown up and the butting or pushing idea is not so far from this, as a swelling can be thought of as a pushing up from the inside. But I have no support for this fancy of mine.
The simple answer to this is, if by note we mean someone who has achieved prominence in any particular field. None of the name have been ennobled or even knighted, and I have never found the name in any of the College of Heralds Visitations. No Bunt that I have discovered has ever been granted a Coat of Arms. But having said that let me say that neither have I come across any notable villains, either early or late. Most seem to have been Yeomen or Small Merchants. Some have had connections with royalty, as servants or employees. There was for instance Robert Bunt of Salisbury, who with George Joce, also of Salisbury, was commissioned to repair the palings round the park of the royal residence at Clarendon, in 1373.
Then in 1424 Walter Bunt was appointed as one of the Kings chaplains at the Tower of London.
In 1753 Leopold Bunt was appointed Master Cook in His Majestys Household Kitchen.
Thomas Bunt de Botisham was listed among Gentry of the County of Cambridgeshire in the year 1433, and Geffrey Bunt was Deputy Bailiff of Norfolk, Suffolk, Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire in about 1509.
If I may end this section on a personal note my great, great grandfather John Bunt (born Lanteglos-by-Fowey in 1770) was a Boatswain in the Royal Navy of HMS Victory on which he served until 1816 when he was made Boatswain of the Yard at Trincomalee, Ceylon.
To return to the Cornish Bunts. I have a theory that the first of them came to Cornwall, probably by sea, from Wiltshire, sometime in the 14 century. There must have been a lot of coas tal trade between Southampton and the Cornish ports live Fowey and Falmouth. At any rate the name seems to be found mainly in east Cornwall. Taking the Parish Registers as a guide (they begin c.1538 or a little later) we find the earli est records in the area of western and southern edges of Bodmin Moor. In the parisges of Blisland, Cardinham, Warleggan and St Neots, with some in Bodmin town and between there and the south coast. They seem to have spread out from there.
German skilled copper miners came to Cornwall, particularly to the Perranzabuloe
area, in Elizabethan times, i.e. 16th century, and "bunt" is German
for colourful BUT you also have to be mindful of the fact that the Cornish language
is not the same as the English language (just look at that parish name Perranzabuloe!).
One theory (guess?) for the name BUNT in Cornwall (by a personal/place name
scholar - and it doesn't mean that it's correct) is that it comes from the old
Cornish "banns" meaning "high place". There's a place called
"Banns" near Porthtowan in St Agnes parish - on the high ground by
Mount Hawke, which is not many miles from Perranzabuloe .
The BUNTs from Viola Rose in New South Wales, Australia. There is a letter from G.G.H. BUNT of Holland. (Further information)
GGH BUNT states that he has the surname BUNT back to 1500s in Rhenen, Holland! GGH further states that
Richard BUNT b. Bradoc June 1, 1593 was the son of William BUNT and Blanche b. 1556 (in Holland?).
Richard married Thomsine EDWARDS in 1601 and started this BUNT
enigma.
Another article in the package states: "The earliest record is in the Cornwall Military Survey of 1522 - a John BUNTE of Warleggan. The Subsidies in the reign of Henry VIII lists a John BUNTA in Bradoc and a John BUNTE in Warleggan in 1525." My guess is that the BUNTA is a phoenetic spelling of BUNTE; the writer of
1525 attempting to sound the "Schwa" (letter e in
BUNTE).
There's a doctor BUNT (computer scientist) with a webpage in Holland .The BUNTs likely started in Austria,
migrated to the Holland - Belgium area and when miners were needed in Cornwall,
packed up and moved to that locale.
Another theory is the Bunts came from Scandinavia and had been seafarers. The
surname Bunt coming from a marine knot called a "buntline".
Many thanks to Graham Bunt for the above information.
