This surname is derived from a geographical locality. I feel assured the name is local, and that it is a modification of Medcroft or Medcraft (v. Craft and Croft, and compare Calcraft and Calcroft), of which an instance still remains in the London Directory Mead and meadow as double forms still exist. Middle English mede, a grassfield, so called because mowed (Skeat). Metcalf and Turnbull were great Yorkshire names. I have seen them side by side in Yorkshire records of 500 years ago. Horace Smith still keeps them in company: 'Mr. Metcalf ran off on meeting a cow, With pale Mr. Turnbull behindnim.'

Willelmus Miducroft, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

Ricardus de Meducroft, 1379: ibid.

Nicholas de Meducroft, Close Rolls, 7 Edward III. pt.

Nicholas de Meducroft, Lancashire 20 Edward I: Placita de Quo Warranto, temp. Edward I-III.

Miles Metkalff: Patent Roll. Henry VII.

James Medcalfe, 1570: Register of the University of Oxford.

Mark Meadcalfe, 1568: ibid.

It is a remarkable fact that I cannot find Metcalf in the Yorkshire Poll Tax of of 1379. But the Meducrofts are there. Probably the corruption had not yet taken place; compare Duncalf and Duncuft, i.e. Duncroft, also Crostkalf infra.

Agnes de Crostkalf, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

For Medcalf, q.v.

(English) Dweller at, or near, the meadow where calves are kept.

A great Yorkshire family. In the third year of Queen Mary. Sir Christopher Metcalfe met "the judges at York, attended on with three hundred horsemen, all of his own name and kindred. well mounted and suitably attired. The Roman Fabii, the most populous tribe in that city, could hardly have made so fair an appearance, insomuch that Master Camden gives the Metcalfes this character: Quae numerosissima totius Angliae familia his temporibus censetur, (which at this time, viz., Anno 1607, is counted the most numerous family of England.) Here I forbear mentioning of another, which perchance might vie with them, lest casually I minister matter of contest." Fuller's Worthies, iii. p. 455. The origin of the name (probably local) is unknown. Dr. Whitaker fancifully derives it from Mec, a Saxon baptismal name, and halgh, a low, watery, flat. Others consider it a compound of the Welsh Medd, a mead, and caf, a cell or church. (Arthur.) Tradition, however, affords a much more easy explanation of it. One John Strong having seized a mad bull by the nostrils with his left hand, killed the beast with his right, and being afterwards questioned on the subject of his prowess, modestly declared that he had simply met a calf. From that time he acquired the surname of Metcalf! Another version of the story is that "two men being in the woods together at evening, seeing a four-footed animal coming towards them, one said, "Have you not heard of lions in these woods?" The other replied that he had, but had never seen any such thing. The animal coming near, one ran away, while the other resolved to meet it; which proving to be a red calf, he that met it got the name of Metcalfe, and he that ran away that of Lightfoot!" (Ingledew's North-Allerton.) Horace Smith is therefore clearly wrong in the assertion that —

In the Welsh, medd signifies a vale, a meadow, and caf a cell, a chancel, a church, i. e., the church in the vale. The origin of the name, however, is given by tradition in this wise. In those days when bullfights were in vogue, in merry England, one of the enraged animals broke away from the combat, and was hotly pursued by horsemen. A certain John Strong happened to meet the bull on the top of a hill, and when attacked by the furious beast, he seized him in the nostrils with his left hand, and killed him. As he came to the foot of the hill, meeting several persons in the pursuit, he was inquired of whether he had met a bull; he replied he "Met a calf," and from this circumstance was called afterward John Metcalfe.

The Metcalfes are a Yorkshire family of great antiquity, and so numerous are they that there is scarcely a town or village in the North Riding which cannot own an inhabitant of the name; in truth, in 1607 the Metcalfes were accounted the most numerous family in England; even in 1555 it is recorded that Sir Christopher Metcalfe, of Nappa Hall, near Askrigg, being high sheriff of Yorkshire, was attended by 300 horsemen, all of his own family and name, to meet the judges of assize and conduct them to York (Puller's "Worthies" and Ingledew's "Northallerton"). The Metcalfes, who settled in York, flourished there as prosperous merchants from the 15th to the 18th century; John Metcalf was lord mayor of that city in 1498, Richard Metcalfe in 1674, and Sir Gilbert in 1695; and Miles Metcalfe represented York in the parliament of Edward IV. (D.). The district of Bedale is that in which the Metcalfs or Metcalfes now most abound. From the North Riding they have spread in numbers into the other parts of Yorkshire, and they have also established themselves in the bordering counties of Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Durham.