The family crest was awarded to Thomas Shiercliffe during the reign of Henry VII, as 'Master of the Game for the Lords of Hallamshire', the Lords being the George Talbot, the sixth Earl of Shrewsbury (Mary Stewart, Queen of Scot's custodian) and the fourth Duke of Norfolk (Thomas Howard, beheaded the second of June 1572 on Tower Hill by Elizabeth I for attempting to wed Mary Stewart and take Elizabeth's crown.) The Shiercliffe pedigree was compiled in King James I 's time from the Shiercliffe names appearing in the 1692 court rolls for Ecclesfield Manor.
The family tree information on these pages is directly from the Pedigree of Shiercliffe of Ecclesfield-Hall, Whitley Hall, Ecclesfield, North Riding, Hallamshire, England. The following preceeds the lineage:
"It will not escape the judicious reader that is pedigree is deficient in dates. But it must have been compiled about the time of King James I., for Richard Parker of Brampton appears in the court rolls of the manor of Ecclesfield anno 1591, together with his three daughters, who were Agnes the wife of Thomas Shiers, Catherine mother of William Simpson then aged 14 years, and Anne who had been the wife of Godfrey Shawe, but then married to Thomas Bloome.
In 1616 Thomas Shiercliffe purchased the estate of this family and it continued to tbe the residence of his descendants until their extinction by the death of John Shiercliffe in 1789 without male issue.
No name appears more frequently in the early volumes of the court rolls for the manor of Ecclesfield than the name of Shiercliffe; and there can be little doubt that the family were indigenous to this neighborhood, deriving their name from Shiercliffe, where the Mounteneys had their seat, and not removing hither from Wolverhampton, as is stated in an old pedigree of the family. The arms and crest depicted below were confirmed to William Shiercliffe of Ecclesfield-Hall, the friend of Dodworth, by Richard Saint George, whose certificate now is in the possession of Miss Elizabeth Gunning of Swainswick near Bath, a co-representative of that branch of the family which resided at Whitley Hall. The arms are evidentally allusive to the office which was held by Thomas Shiercliffe in the reign of Henry VII., of master of the game to the lords of Hallamshire. the best authorities for the earlier descents of this family and a pedigree are entered at the visitation of 1612 and another showing the descent of William Shiercliffe of Eccelsfield-Hall from the masster of the game, compiled by William Shiercliffe himself, and preserved among Mr. Wilson's collections. I have also had the assistance of a pedigree compiled by Charles Green, esquire, Lancaster herald, in drawing up the following table, in which I have endeavored to avoid stating any thing as proved which was of dubious authority."
PEDIGREE OF SHIERCLIFFE OF ECCLESFIELD-HALL, WHITLEY-HALL &c.
Arms - Or, a fess between 3 greyhounds' heads erased sable, collars and rings gule
Crest - On a torce or and sable a falchion erect proper, hilt or, having a leopard's head thereon or.
Whitley Hall, Ecclesfield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England
Whitley Hall Website
Painting of Whitley Hall by Roswell Morse Shurtleff circa mid 1800's
Shiercliffe Genealogy from the visitation of 1612
The record of my visit with pictures
Shiercliffe sources:
Ecc = County Records of Ecclesfield
StM = Inscriptions on the floor in the Chancel of St. Marys Ecclesfield
Reg = The First Book of The Marriage, Baptismal, and Burial Registers, Of
Ecclesfield Parish Church 1558 to 1619
EBT = Ecclesfield Bishop Transcripts
Rem = "Reminiscences of Sheffield" by R.E.Leader, Chapter VI: Amusements,
Learning and Literature
Gen - Shurtleff Genealogy, exerpts from Hunter's Hallamshire Topography
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