(i) This surname is derived from a geographical locality. 'of Holland,' a settler in England from Holland. This is rare.

William de Holond, Oxfordshire. 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Ricardus de Holand, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

Johannes de Holand, 1379: ibid.

(2) Local, 'of Holland.' In general the surname takes its rise from the two Hollands in Lancashire, viz. Down Holland, a township in the parish of Halsall, and Up Holland, a township in the parish of Wigan. Among the townspeople of strictly indigenous growth who were on the roll of the Preston Guild Merchant (a.D. 1397)appears 'Robert de Holand' (Preston Guild Rolls).

'Thomas de Lathom, chevalier, Robert de Holand, chevalier ... hold of John de Ware, one knight's fee' (in Childwall, Turlon, &c.): Knights' Fees, 23 Edward III, Baines' Lancashire.

'Holand, a priory of Blake Monkes, a ii miles from Wigan': Leland.

In Lancashire this surname has ramified marvellously, and has spread all over the world.

Thomas Holland, of Downholland, 1502: Wills at Chester.

Richard Holland, of Downholland, 1608: ibid.

John Holland, of Upholland (Wigan), 1610: ibid.

Henry Holland, Lancashire, 1600: Register of the University of Oxford.

Richard Holland, Lancashire, 1615: ibid.

More likely to be of local origin than from Holland (Netherlands). There are several places named Houlland in Shetland and there are Hollands in Orkney. Hollandbush is in Stirlingshire, and Holland-Hirst is in the parish of Kirkintilloch. There are also places named Holland in England. Willelmus de Holland, a witness in the reign of Alexander II (Scon, p. 53). Richard Holande, vicar of Ronaldsay, 1467 (SCM., V, p. 393) derived his surname from one of the three places so named in Orkney. Thomas de Holande was chaplain in Dundee, 1452 (REB., I, 153), and 'Sir' Andrew Holand was vicar of Eroly, 1469 (Cupar-Angus, I, p. 144). Bartholomew Holland, John Holland, and Walter Holland were repledged to liberty of the burgh of Irvine, 1472 (lrvine, I, p. 28), and Ralph Holland was a witness in Ayr, 1687 (Ayr, p. 211). William Holland and Peter Holland are mentioned in an Orkney witch trial, 1616 (Rogers, Social life in Scotland, III, p. 302).

It has been stated on the authority of George of Croyland, who wrote an account of the family in 1550, that the noble and knightly race of this name could trace themselves backwards thirteen generations beyond the Norman Conquest! For 13 we should probably read 3; and there is a more credible genealogy which makes the fundator gentis one Otho, whose son Stephen flourished under Edw. the Confessor, as lord of Stevington, co. Lincoln, and his son, Ralph de Holand, it is said, continued to hold his lands by the permission of William the Conqueror. These lands were in the district of Lincolnshire still known as Holland, but there is also a Holland in Lancashire which belonged to the family. They were ennobled by Edward I., and their blood mingled with that of royalty itself by the marriage of Thomas de Holland with the lovely Joane Plantagenet, the Fair Maid of Kent, and granddaughter of King Edward III.

Local. A name given to a native of that country, which was so called from Hollow—land, because it abounds with ditches Ml of water. Bailey is of opinion that the Danes who conquered Holland, so called it from an island in the Baltic of the same name, from ol, beer, drink. Why not from Hold land, the land taken and kept, held, governed?

Cheshire is the great home of the Hollands, who are especially numerous in the Northwich district. The name occurs in several parts of England, as in Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire, Notts, etc., and in all the east coast counties from Lincolnshire to Kent; in the last - named county it takes the form of Hollands. A gentle family of Holland that resided at Denton, Lancashire, in the 16th and 17th centuries, owned property in Cheshire, and some of them in the reign of Charles II. were buried at Nether Peover (O.). Holland is the name of parishes and districts in Lincolnshire and Essex, and Hoyland of parishes and townships in the West Riding. De Hoyland and De Hoylaund were common Lincolnshire surnames in the 13th century (H. R.).

The noble house of Holland was connected with Kent during the last two centuries. Long before this, however, in the reign of Richard II., the Holands were the lords of Kent (H.).