Larkman is an Anglo Saxon

Old English language

Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

 surname used in the UK, US, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 and Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. Although Larkman is a very uncommon name it is not historically rare in Norfolk

Norfolk

Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and it is possible that all Larkmans originated from Norfolk. Research carried out by Frank Randall and Brian Larkman has revealed that only a handful of Larkmans can be found outside Norfolk and Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

 before 1800.http://www.btinternet.com/~richard.larkman/

History

Most early Norfolk Larkmans lived off the land as farm labourers, some died as paupers whilst a few prospered and became yeoman

Yeoman

Yeoman refers chiefly to a free man owning his own farm, especially from the Elizabethan era to the 17th century. Work requiring a great deal of effort or labor, such as would be done by a yeoman farmer, came to be described as "yeoman's work"...

 farmers who employed others as labourers.

Gradually Larkmans moved from the countryside to the towns, some to Norwich

Norwich

Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

, the more adventurous to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. John Larkman moved to Hull

Kingston upon Hull

Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...

 some time after 1824. Many became craftsmen, some Freemen of Norwich and one a Freeman of the City of London

City of London

The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

. From about 1860 onwards Larkman families moved further a field to the growing industrial centres - Tyneside

Tyneside

Tyneside is a conurbation in North East England, defined by the Office of National Statistics, which is home to over 80% of the population of Tyne and Wear. It includes the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Metropolitan Boroughs of Gateshead, North Tyneside and South Tyneside — all settlements on...

, Teesside

Teesside

Teesside is the name given to the conurbation in the north east of England made up of the towns of Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar, Billingham and surrounding settlements near the River Tees. It was also the name of a local government district between 1968 and 1974—the County Borough of...

, Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

 and the Midlands

English Midlands

The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...

.

A Larkman sailed with Shackleton

Ernest Shackleton

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...

 to the Antarctic

Antarctic

The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...

. William Larkman, a gardener to Norwich gentry gave his name to a part of Norwich which now has a Larkman Lane, Larkman school http://www.larkmanmiddle.norfolk.sch.uk/ and a Larkman Pub. Charles James Larkman, also known as James Larkman, was in the English army (60th regiment) but married Catherine Murphy and moved to Ireland. He had one son John Larkman. In 1835 he was tried and found guilty of stealing clothes or money (different documents say different things) and was transported to Australia on the 'Lady MacNaughton'. Whilst on ship he kept a diary. Given his Ticket of Leave (parole) and Certificate of Freedom on 13 September 1842 he married again, three times in all, his last marriage was to Ann Sefferidge. He worked as a butler for retired East India Company judge James Donnithorne when he retired to Sydney, lived at his residence Camperdown Lodge with his wife and two daughters. Upon Donnithorne’s death in 1852 his employment at Camperdown Lodge ceased and they moved to a house nearby, the Larkman’s lived off a £50 pension from James Donnithorne, a substantial sum at the time when the average yearly income was £10. They could have retired with ease but decided to use their windfall to start life afresh, they were drawn to the countryside by the lure of the Gold Rush, moved to Tambaroora, Hill End, where two children were born before moving on to Bathurst which had a strike. Records show Charles Larkman was not afraid of hard work, he ran a small farm, did some laboring work and also prospected for gold but it all came to an end for him in April 1864 when he was brutally murdered, beaten badly and dumped in Fitzgerald’s Mount Creek, near Bathurst. His decomposing body was found by a friend on May 3, 1864, the exact cause of the 62 year olds death could not be ascertained due to the state of the body but it was certainly murder by person or persons unknown. His wife and family moved on to Orange, where she worked as a domestic servant and died in 1875.

The Meaning Of The Name Larkman

The Oxford dictionary of surnames gives the definition below.

• Servant of Lark. Where Lark is from a medieval given name, a byform of Lawrence, derived by back-formation from Larkin

With just two exceptions (see note below) all Larkman families in the world can trace their ancestry back to the county of Norfolk in eastern England. From the early 15th up to the 18th century, bar two sightings in London, no Larkman is listed outside Norfolk or neighbouring Suffolk. This, along with its rarity, suggests that Larkman is a locative surname i.e. it is derived from a placename.

British Surnames by C W Bardsley (published 1901) suggests that Larkman is derived from Lakenham a small village one mile south of Norwich (now a suburb of Norwich). This theory is supported that the earliest recorded Larkmans are to be found in this area and that the surname de Lakenham appears in deeds and apprentice records in the early 14th century. It does not appear in later records.

Larkman's Who Died In World War One

Name	Rank	Regiment	Date of Death
Larkman, A W	Seaman	Royal Naval Reserve	1 June 1916
Larkman, C	Rifleman	Royal Rifle Corps	6 April 1918
Larkman, F H A	Private	Australian Infantry, A.I.F	27 September 1917
Larkman, J	Lance Serjeant	King's Royal Rifle Corps	21 April 1916
Larkman, J	Private	East Surrey Regiment	10 May 1915
Larkman, J	Gunner	Royal Garrison Artillery	6 July 1918
Larkman, J C	Private	The Buffs (East Kent Regiment)	27 July 1918
Larkman, R	Private	Durham Light Infantry	15 May 1915
Larkman, W	Private	East Yorkshire Regiment	16 September 1918
Larkman, W A	Rifleman	Kings Royal Rifle Corps	15 September 1914

Second World War

Name	Rank	Regiment	Date of Death
Larkman, A J	Able Seaman	Royal Navy	26 September 1943
Larkman, D E	Sergeant	Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve	16 November 1950
Larkman, F E	Flying Officer	Royal Canadian Air Force	3 March 1945
Larkman, J W	Stoker 1st Class	Royal Navy	27 July 1943
Larkman, S	Leading Aircraftman	Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve	28 June 1943
Larkman, W	Lieutenant	Royal Northumberland Fusiliers	17 October 1942