Note 358 — Chapter V · SURNAMES OF OCCUPATION. (TOWN).

In the Mysteries composed for the City Pageant by Randle, a monk of Chester Abbey, in the thirteenth century, a part in it is directed to be sustained by the ‘Corvesters and Shoemakers.’ (Ormerod’s Cheshire, p. 301). In this case we have the strictly speaking Saxon feminine termination appended to a Norman word. I have found three ‘Shoemakers.’ ‘Harry Shomaker’ was an attendant of the Princess Mary (1542). (Privy Purse Expenses, p. 2.) ‘Christopher Shoomaker’ was burnt at Newbury (1518), whose story is related by Foxe. The name seems to have lingered on till the close of the xviiith cent., for it is found in St. Anne’s register, Manchester, in 1781, as ‘Showmaker:’ ‘Mary, wife of John Showmaker, buried Aug. 26, 1781.’ This spelling reminds me of an entry in the Household of Princess Elizabeth, Cam. Soc.:—‘Robert Waterman for showing (shoeing) xviis.’ (p. 29.)

‘And that the corvesers bye ther lether in the seid Gild-halle.’ (Ordinances of Worcester, English Guilds, 371).