The earliest Swindales (Swindles etc) in the north of England were possibly enticed from Derbyshire in the middle of the 17th century as skilled lead smelters, bringing the latest technology to the North Pennine orefields. This painting 'Lead Processing at Leadhills: Smelting the Ore' by David Allan (Out of Copyright, National Galleries of Scotland) is from a century later at Leadhills in south Lanarkshire.
The probable origin of the name is Swyndelves, near Stockport in Cheshire. In this area there is evidence of hereditary surname formation outside the major land-owners at early as at least 1282 - e.g. the Bridge or 'de Ponte' family of Stockport - but at this time most 'surnames' (bynames) in the area were occupational and not hereditary. By the late fourteenth century the reverse appears to be true and the Swindell surname probably originated sometime in the mid-14th century (assuming that it originated in Cheshire). The earliest record of the name yet found is in Nottingham in 1434. More....
