Origins of the surname INGGS

Origins of the surname
INGGS

compiled by

JON INGGS
7th June 1979

INGGS, INGES, INGS, ING or INGE: The name appears to be Germanic in its origin, stemming from the Nordic god Ingvi-Freyr (more commonly Frey). The Anglo-Saxon Runic Poem of the 6th Century refers to Frey as Ing. In Nordic mythology Ing was the god of the sun and was once king of the Swedes bringing a reign of peace and plenty. He is said to be the ancestor of the Inglings, which is translated as 'sons' or 'descendants' of Ing. The old English poem Beowulf written in AD 1000, but based on earlier sagas, uses the term Ingwine (friend of Ing), when speaking of Danish kings. Ing apparently meant 'Lord'. Tacitus the Roman historian in his study Germania written in AD 98, made Ing the eponymous father of the north Germans when he called them Ingaevones.

The Nordic gods were divided into two main 'tribes': the Aesir with Odin (Woden) as the most important one, and, the Vanir with Ing as the most popular. Unlike the Aesir who were mainly gods of war, the Vanir were gods of fertility and riches. Ing has also been connected with the Latin anguis (serpent or inguen/groin/phallus) and the Greek eskhos (lance/pole) - all fertility symbols. Ing was the son of Njord (literally 'Father Earth' as there are no feminine nouns in Norse), who was the god of the sea 'and all its riches' and his sister. Initially there was war between the Aesir and the Vaner, but, peace was made and Njord and Ing came to live amongst the Aesir end were accepted into their hierarchy. Ing then married Gerdr, a giantess whose name means 'field'. There seems to be a connection between the fertility side of Ing and fields because in the north of England Ings is a common name for a meadow, especially one by the side of a river and more or less swampy or subject to inundation. In Yorkshire there are: an Ings Meadow and an Ings Field, while in Nottinghamshire there are: an Ing Close and an Ings Holm. At Hurworth in Durham there is an Ingmire, while at Egglescliffe there is an Innge. A variation on the field-name theme is Nun Ings in Yorkshire signifying that the field belonged to a convent at some stage. There is a Nut Ing in Derbyshire.

The Oxford New English Dictionary says -ing is a patronymic meaning: 'one descended from, a son of', as in Ingling mentioned before. It has been possible to isolate from early English place-names a group of apparently early names containing an Anglo-Saxon personal name coupled with -ings or -ingas as in Hastings (people of Haesta). These names suggest a group of people associated together under a single leader, and, since the personal names are often archaic and failed to become popular in England they possibly date to the days of Anglo-Saxon conquest from AD 450. They reveal a pattern established in the primary phase of settlement in the eastern coastal regions from Yorkshire to Sussex, coinciding in a striking manner with those districts in which archaeological traces of early Anglo-Saxon invaders have been most numerous.

Place-names containing the elements -ham, -tun(/ton), -worth, -field etc, but without an original -ings, which is in effect the great majority of English place-names, belong to a subsequent, secondary phase of settlement spread out over many decades. A combination of the early conquest and the secondary phase is apparently the case in names like Ingham (Ing's homestead) found in Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Ingle (Ing's valley) in Lancashire and Ingol (Ing's hill) show the same trend. However, this type of name which is directly associated with Ing, the god, is commonest in the Danish-settled areas and thus might only date from the period of the Viking invasion in the ninth Century.

Further afield, there is an Ings River in Canada. In fact this is the only reference to the name in the Times World Index-Gazetteer which has almost 400 000 entries. More directly related is Inggsville, a small-holding at Kruis River, just outside Uitenhage, South Africa, nearby the first Inggs woolwashery at Springfield which dates back to the 1860s. Gubb & Inggs, founded by Herbert Inggs (1863-1931) and T.W. Gubb in 1904, is today still South Africa's largest woolwashing company. There is an Inggs Avenue in Uitenhage, named after Herbert Inggs who was a former mayor, as was his father, Henry Inggs (1839-92). There is an Inggs Street in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, which clearly must have been named after the woolwashing Inggs of the nearby Uitenhage. At Muir College, Uitenhage, there is an Inggs House named after Alfred Redvers Inggs (1899-1930), an old boy and a chemistry graduate of Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, who was blown up on a tour of inspection at the AECI dynamite factory at Modderfontein, South Africa, in 1930. There is also an Inggs scholarship at the school in his memory.

To date, research has shown that all the known "double-G" Inggs are related and descended from Jonathan Inggs (1781-1819) who is buried just outside the west door of Winchester Cathedral in England.

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