English Place-Name Society

The English Place-Name Society is a learned society concerned with toponomastics and the toponymy of England, in other words, the study of place-names (toponyms).

Its scholars aim to explain the origin and history of the names they study, taking into account factors such as the meaning of the elements out of which they were created (which can be in languages such as Old English, or early Welsh, Danish, Norwegian or Cornish etc.); the topography, geology and ecology of the places bearing the names; and the general and local history and culture of England.

In 1922 Professor Allen Mawer read a paper to the British Academy about setting up an English place-name survey. He obtained the formal and financial support of the Academy. Within a year he had brought into being a society composed of interested persons, provided it with a constitution and laid down the lines of its future conduct. The headquarters of the Society were first at the University of Liverpool where Mawer was Professor of English Language. The publications of the Society began in 1924 with two volumes, a collection of essays and a dictionary of place-name elements. Mawer and Aileen Armstrong acted as General Editors for the annual volumes of county place-name surveys. From 1929 J. E. B. Gover collected material and was sub-editor of the volumes.

In 1929 Professor Mawer was appointed Provost of University College, London and the Society moved there at the end of the year. When World War II came the Society moved briefly to University College, Aberystwyth, back to London and then to Stansted Bury on the Hertfordshire/Essex border. In July 1942 Sir Allen Mawer died and Sir Frank Stenton became General Editor. The Society moved to the University of Reading until 1946. When Professor Bruce Dickins succeeded as Honorary Director the Society moved to the University of Cambridge and Miss Margaret Midgley (later Dr Margaret Gelling) was appointed Research Assistant.

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