Sixty years of research has provided great insight into the development of the Bracher family in Australia, but, alas, has not cast much light on the derivation and entymology of the surname.

 

In 1986 Keith Halford Bracher of Sydney pondered the origin of the surname. Keith’s father, George Reginald Alberto Bracher, had told him and his siblings that the earliest known ‘Bracher’ had come from Normandy as a standard bearer in William the Conqueror’s army. Keith’s research into the well documented Norman army, however, did not reveal any ‘Bracher’ among the listings.

 

The current Australian spelling of the surname is found in England, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but Keith said there was no knowledge of it in Normandy. He remarked that all the above countries were destinations for Calvanist Huguenot refugees during their persecution after King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. About 200,000 Huguenots fled France to settle in non-Catholic Europe, primarily England, the Dutch Republic, Germany and Switzerland. The surname is certainly very common in many Swiss and German phone directories. Similarly, North America is awash with the name. This may have resulted from the emigration of 10,000 Huguenots from France to Pennsylvania, Virginia. Massachusetts, New York and South Carolina, often via England.

 

The Huguenot theory may have some substance. Keith’s father had told him that their ancestors were Calvanists. Although the Church of England welcomed the refugees, the Huguenots also set up their own churches, or were attracted to some of the stricter non-conformist faiths, including the Baptists and the various Wesleyan and Methodist churches. Many of the earlier Bracher generations in Wiltshire were staunchly non-conforming: Baptist, Wesleyan and Methodist. During the early 1800s, the children of Henry James Bracher and Mary Anne Stickland were christened at the Particular Baptist Church, Brown Street, Salisbury (Wiltshire). The Particular Baptists closely followed the original Calvin doctrine.

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However, the strongest concurrence of opinion on the name, through various armorial services, is that the modern surname ‘Bracher’ derives from the Middle English name ‘Brecher’, which, in turn, grew out of the Old English pre 7th century word ‘braec’ or ‘breac’. A ‘braec’ denoted newly cultivated land and derives from ‘brecan’; to break.

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The basis of today’s English language was brought to Celtic Briton (followed by the Roman occupation) in AD 449 by the Germanic tribes, the Angles and Saxons from the coastal part of Germany known as Lower Saxony, and by the Jutes from Denmark. The Romans were already leaving, and the fury of the Angle and Saxon invasion further pushed the Celts into the west and northern parts of the island. The Anglo-Saxon invaders not only overwhelmed the countryside, but almost obliterated the ancient Celtic languages.

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The Anglo Saxons were a staunchly agricultural people and their vocabulary was full of farming terms and references. A ‘Brecher’ or ‘Bracher’ was an Anglo-Saxon word for a person who lived next to a newly cultivated piece of land. One of the strongest Saxon strongholds in early England was the south-west of the country, especially around Wiltshire.

 

After the Norman Invasion in 1066, when bureaucracy surrounding personal tax collection created the need for better personal identification of individuals, words denoting topographical features were amongst the earliest form of surname adopted. Other variants of ‘Brecher’ include Bratcher, Breacher and Britcher. Interestingly, George Bracher was referred in the captain’s journal on his voyage to the Swan River (W.A.) in 1838 as ‘Breacher’.

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The Middle High German word ‘Brache’ meaning fallow land or pastureland is remarkably close to the Middle English word ‘Breche’, which by the 12-13th century had evolved from the Anglo-Saxon ‘Braec’. The locations of Brache and Breach in Bedfordshire are said to originate from the Middle English word.

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The earliest recorded reference to the name ‘Bracher’ or its variants in England is in the 13th century, when Peter de la Breche was mentioned in the Assize Rolls of Salopshire, Somerset, in 1221. Also around this time, Robert le Brechere was recorded in the Cartulary of Oseney Abbey, Oxfordshire in 1245. He was known as ‘the Frenchman’.  Later in that century we find a John de la Breche of Wiltshire and an Isaak de la Breche of Oxfordshire. Did these people emigrate from French speaking countries to live in the south of England ?, or were they descended from long time Anglo-Saxon residents and were pragmatic and, possibly, opportunistic enough to adopt a more formal French-variant of the surname in the 12th and 13th centuries ?

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The influence of France and the French language on England after the Norman invasion was certainly strongest in southern parts of the country. The invasion in 1066 by Count William of Normandy changed the English language forever. King Harold was ousted, thus ending English speaking kings for nearly 300 years. William purged the English church and for many generations afterwards nearly all important positions in the country were occupied by French speaking Normans. The sweep of French culture and language over England following the invasion may have prompted reasonably well-off and aspirational landowners to adopt a French version of their surname. Certainly, there was a form of English apartheid introduced in the country. Religion, law, science and literature were all conducted in French or Latin. At court, and in government, French was the dominant language. In upper class circles it was fashionable to speak French for social and cultural prestige. Did some families morph their old English topographical names into French sounding surnames ?

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If this speculation is the case, then the French version of our surname may have persisted through the following two or three centuries, and then changed to the variation that we now use. The use of English by the lower masses was never in doubt in England. Old English was too widespread and established to be overwhelmed by French. English still dominated the spoken word and the Normans intermarried with those they had conquered. English as a spoken and written language started to make a comeback in the 13th century, especially under Edward 1, and the movement was considerably aided by the Hundred Years War (1337-1454). Anti-French feeling, plus a desire to throw off the ‘Norman yoke’ and hark back to Anglo-Saxon roots, was gathering momentum in higher and political circles by 15th and 16th century England.

 

‘Gaslight Genealogy’ records that the ‘Bracher’ surname was present in Wiltshire as early as 1567 and the name multiplies exponentially during the next three centuries, particularly around Tisbury, Wiltshire. Many district phone books in Wiltshire and Dorset are still replete with the surname. By this stage, English had evolved from Old English to Middle English, a process that was characterised by some significant vowel shifts and pronunciation changes. The harsher vowel sound of the Saxon-derived word ‘Brache’ may have evolved in Middle English to the softer vowel of the current pronunciation. However, if it did pass through a French variant, the vowel may already have been softened. The surname in most European countries is still pronounced with the harsher German sounding vowel, ie ‘Brar’, and the ‘ch’ pronounced as a ‘k’, ie brar-ker.

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Just to add further intrigue and confusion to the surname investigation, Keith Bracher also researched contractions and common variants of the name. When searching the English Parish Registers prepared by the Mormon Church, Keith found that in old English usage a ‘Brach’ was a hound and a Bracher was the keeper of the hounds. He comments that this closely follows the Medieval Flemish ‘Braak’ or ‘Brak’, which also meant hound.  Research since then has also revealed that in Medieval Bavaria ‘brache’ was also an occupational name, meaning ‘Master of the Hunting Dogs’. It derived from the old German word ‘bracke’. Recorded spelling variations of brache include ‘Bracher’.

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The variations of the name, its geographic spread throughout Europe, and the widely differing meanings of the name, probably means that its exact origins will forever be shrouded in mystery.

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To provide greater genealogical clarity to the distant origins of the Brachers in Australia, the family enlisted the cooperation of its then oldest surviving member in Melbourne. Marjorie Taylor (nee Bracher) provided a DNA swab for analysis in 2019. Not surprisingly, the results indicated the majority slice being English and north western European (51%), then Irish (27%), followed by Scandinavian (9%), Spanish (6%), Scottish (6%) and Northern Africa (1%).

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It is intriguing for some of us to speculate on the origin and meaning of the surname and, no doubt, the speculation will go on for many generations, but we should not devote too much time to it, because it is only incidental to the history of the Brachers in this country.

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