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 —

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.