Dorking.
By the kindness of the Registrar-General, I am enabled to point, with some
precision, to a few of the localities in which the name of Longfellow
exists in this country. Upon reference to the well-arranged indexes in his
office, it appears that the deaths of sixty-one persons bearing this name
were recorded in the years 1838 to 1852; and of these, fifty occurred in
the West Riding of Yorkshire, namely, in Leeds thirty-five; Otley, and its
neighbourhood, ten; Selby four, and in Keighley one. The other instances
were, in the metropolis seven, and one each in Swansea, Newport (Monmouth),
Tewkesbury, and Hastings. More than one third of the males bore the
Christian name of William.
It is not probable that the Longfellows are numerous in any part of
England: indeed, as we {425} know that of the general population the
average annual mortality is 2.2 per cent, the sixty-one deaths in fifteen
years, or four deaths yearly, might be supposed to result from about two
hundred persons of the name; but inferences of this nature, except when
large masses are dealt with, are often very fallacious.
May not the derivation of the name be from _long fallow_, of the same
family as Fallows, Fellowes, Fallowfield, and Langmead, which are not
uncommon?