The surname of ACKLIN was a locational name 'of Acland' near Barnstable, County Devon. Local names usually denoted where a man held his land, and indicated where he actually lived. Early records of the name mention Richard Ackelonde, 1273, County Somerset. Robertus Acklande of Yorkshire, was listed in the Yorkshire Poll Tax of 1379. Edward Aklande was recorded in Wiltshire in 1400. Elizabeth Aclande and Edgar Simpson were married at St. George's, Hanover Square, London in the year 1735. Between the 11th and 15th centuries, it became customary for surnames to be assumed in Europe, but were not commonplace in England or Scotland before the Norman Invasion of 1066. Those of gentler blood assumed surnames at that time, but it was not until the reign of Edward III (1327-1377) that second names became general practice for all people. The names introduced into Britain by the Normans during and in the wake of the Invasion of 1066, are nearly all territorial in origin. The followers of William the Conqueror were a pretty mixed lot, and while some of them brought the names of their castles and villages in Normandy with them, many were adventurers of different nationalities attached to William's standard by the hope of plunder, and possessing no family or territorial names of their own. Those of them who acquired lands in England were called by their manors, while others took the name of the offices they held or the military titles given to them, and sometimes, a younger son of a Norman landowner, on receiving a grant of land in his new home dropped his paternal name and adopted that of his newly acquired property. Baldwin Aclande was documented in the county of Devon in the year 1609. It has long been a matter of doubt when the bearing of coats of arms first became hereditary and it was not until the Crusades that Heraldry came into general use. Men went into battle heavily armed and were difficult to recognise. It became the custom for them to adorn their helmets with distinctive crests, and to paint their shields with animals and the like. Coats of arms accompanied the development of surnames, becoming hereditary in the same way.