The surname of ASHMEAD is of the locational group of surnames 'of Ashmead' i.e. the dweller at the mead or meadow which was surrounded by ash-trees, the name of many places throughout England. The earliest of the name on record appears to be ASMEADE (without surname) who was recorded in Yorkshire in 1195. Edwin Ashmede was documented in London in the year 1200. Most of the place-names that yield surnames are usually of small communities, villages, hamlets, some so insignificant that they are now lost to the map. A place-name, it is reasonable to suppose, was a useful surname only when a man moved from his place of origin to elsewhere, and his new neighbours bestowed it, or he himself adopted it. Nicholas de ASTMEDE was recorded in County Gloucestershire in the year 1273, and Edward ASHMEADE of Yorkshire, was listed in the Yorkshire Poll Tax of 1379. Most of the European surnames were formed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The process had started somewhat earlier and had continued in some places into the 19th century, but the norm is that in the tenth and eleventh centuries people did not have surnames, whereas by the fifteenth century most of the population had acquired a second name. A later instance of the name mentions Benjamin Ashmead and Elizabeth Clough who were married at St. George's, Hanover Square, London in the year 1783. 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. The pelican depicted in the arms is the emblem of charity, and is much used in coat armour. The greyhound was a slender dog, fitted for running swiftly and again was a charge often chosen to signify its speed and agility.