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The SLINGO's of Hampshire + related by marriage
SLINGO'S of Oxford family 1
SLINGO'S of Oxford family 2
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GEORGE SLINGO 1826 - of Hampshire
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HAMPSHIRE STORY GEORGE 1770-1842
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WELCOME to the SLINGO FAMILY WebSite
 Slingo Family Website for all Slingo's and descendants, this is as much your site as mine and any suggestions will be welcome.
Why not make this your home page and keep in touch.
(As most of the information available on this site, names, b.m.d.'s etc. is on website's elsewhere I have been requested and decided to put all the known names of living descendants but not their dates of birth/marriage this helps you to find yourselves with find on the browser, and identify near relatives.)
If you wish to be removed please contact me and it will be done.
Note: I do not have access to your email address you use to access the Guest Book so if you have questions and I have some for a number of you ! would you please contact me using the email form conection below and I can put you intouch with others, but only if you wish the contact.
Something I should have done long a go, but there has been so many, is to thank all who have donated information and done lookups for me, those who have given their time to poor over micofish. and records.
Not only Slingo family members but strangers who have nothing to gain. from Alaska and Canada, to Hampshire and Australia. I will not name anybody, but If you read this you know who you are, some email address's I have lost! sorry I am not still in touch.
Also thank the volunteer workers whom complile census and records, who remain anonymous. and any other donator be they unaware or not.
SO THANK YOU from all SLINGO's and their relations !
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Origin of surname ?
Since DNA testing, through only small sample has been tested (see below for DNA information) it seems that the name Slingo is a derivative of Slinger which also shows as Slynger, as some of you know through researching your ancestors how names can be changed by missreading by transcribers some exsamples Stingo, slingoe, Slings, Kings, this last one appears in the IGI
IGI Individual Record
FamilySearch™ International Genealogical Index v5.0
British Isles
George Kings
Male Event(s): Marriages: Spouse: Martha Pretty 09 JUN 1793 Crondall, Hampshire, England Source Information: Batch No.: Dates: Source Call No.: Type: Printout Call No.: Type: I019071 Film So our name is the same as SLINGER
which comes from the someone who uses or load a sling. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sling_(weapon)http://www.surnamedb.com/surname.aspx?name=slinger
Sports and Pastimes of the People of England
by Joseph Strutt
CHAPTER II
Slinging of Stones an Ancient Art--Known to the Saxons--And the Normans--How practised of late Years--Throwing of Weights and Stones with the Hand--By the Londoners--Casting of the Bar
SLINGING OF STONES.--The art of slinging, or casting of stones with a sling, is of high antiquity, and probably antecedent to that of archery, though not so generally known nor so universally practised. The tribe of Benjamin among the Israelites is celebrated in holy writ for the excellency of its slingers. In the time of the judges there were seven hundred Benjamites who all of them used their left hands, and in the figurative language of the Scripture it is said, they "could sling stones at an hair-breadth and not miss," 1 that is, with exceedingly great precision. Again we are told, that when David fled to Ziklag, he was joined by a party of valiant men of the tribe of Benjamin, who could use both the right and the left in slinging of stones and shooting arrows out of a bow. 2 David himself was also an excellent marksman, as the destruction of Goliath by the means of his sling sufficiently testifies. It was, perhaps, an instrument much used by the shepherds in ancient times, to protect their flocks from the attacks of ferocious animals: if so, we shall not wonder that David, who kept his father's sheep, was so expert in the management of this weapon. 3
* SLINGING BY THE ANGLO-SAXONS.--The later Assyrian sculptures frequently show soldiers armed with the sling, and the Persians, as we gather from Xenophon, were expert slingers. Sling bullets of lead, stone, and hard-baked clay or terra-cotta were used by the Romans; their slingers were an important light-armed division of their armies; they appear on the Trajan column. Sling stones have been found, occasionally in considerable numbers, at Romano-British stations; but there are also good reasons for knowing that the archaic tribes of the British Isles were well acquainted with the use of the sling long before the arrival of the Romans. Stones for this purpose have been found in early barrows and entrenchments, both in England and Ireland. 4 The sling and its deadly effects are frequently alluded to in the Irish annals.
Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors were skilful in the management of the sling; its form is preserved in several of their paintings, and the manner in which it was used by them, as far back as the eighth century, may be seen on plate five, from p. 60
a manuscript of that age in the Cotton Library. 1 It is there represented with one of the ends unloosened from the hand and the stone discharged. In the original the figure is throwing the stone at a bird upon the wing, which is represented at some distance from him.
In other instances we see it depicted with both the ends held in the hand, the figure being placed in the action of taking his aim, and a bird is generally the object of his exertion, as in another drawing on the same plate from a parchment roll in the Royal Library, containing a genealogical account of the kings of England to the time of Henry III. 2
Sometimes the sling is attached to a staff or truncheon, about three or four feet in length, wielded with both hands, and charged with a stone of no small magnitude. These staff-slings, known by the Romans as fuslibalus, appear to have been chiefly used in besieging of cities, and on board of ships in engagements by sea. The representation of two such slings on plate five is taken from a drawing supposed to have been made by Matthew Paris, in a MS. at Bennet’ College, Cambridge. 3
SLINGING BY THE ANGLO-NORMANS.--We have sufficient testimony to prove that men armed with slings formed a part of the Anglo-Norman soldiery, 4 and the word balistarii, used by our early historians, may, I doubt not, be more properly rendered slingers than cross-bowmen; though indeed, upon the introduction of the cross-bow, these men might take the place of the slingers. In fact the cross-bow itself was modified to the purpose of discharging of stones, and for that reason was also called a stone-bow, so that the appellation Balistarius and Arcubalistarius were both of them latterly applied to the same person. At the battle of Hastings slingers formed part of both the armies; from this period until the close of the fourteenth century they formed an important element in every military expedition. They also continued to be used for fowling purposes, and doubtless often for mere pastime. The sling, however, was not entirely superseded by the bow at the commencement of the fifteenth century, as the following verses plainly indicate: they occur in a manuscript poem in the Cotton Library, 5 entitled, "Knyghthode and Batayle," written about that time, which professedly treats upon the duties and exercises necessary to constitute a good soldier.
Use eek the cast of stone, with slynge or honde:
It falleth ofte, yf other shot there none is,
Men harneysed in steel may not withstonde,
The multitude and mighty cast of stonys;
And stonys in effecte, are every where,
And slynges are not noyous for to beare.
By the two last lines the poet means to say, that stones are every where readily procured, and that the slings are by no means cumbersome to the bearers, which were cogent reasons for retaining them as military weapons; neither does he confine their use to any body or rank of soldiers, but indiscriminately recommends the acquirement of skill in the casting of stones, to every individual who followed the profession of a warrior.
* In the metrical tale of King Edward and the Shepherd (fourteenth century), the countryman exclaims--
"I have slyngs smort and good";
and proudly declares--
"The best archer of ilk one
I durst meet him with a stone,
And gif him lefe to shoot.
There is no bow that shall laste
To draw to my slyng's cast."
In Barclay's Eclogues, issued in 1508, a shepherd states that--
"I can dance the rage; I can both pipe and sing
If I were mery; I can both hurl and sling."
Leland in his Itinerary, when describing the isle of Portland in 1536, states--"The people be good there in slyngging of stonys, and use it for defence of the isle."
MODERN MODES OF SLINGING.--I remember in my youth to have seen several persons expert in slinging of stones, which they performed with thongs of leather, or, wanting those, with garters; and sometimes they used a stick of ash or hazel, a yard or better in length, and about an inch in diameter; it was split at the top so as to make an opening wide enough to receive the stone, which was confined by the re-action of the stick on both sides, but not strong enough to resist the impulse of the slinger. It required much practice to handle this instrument with any great degree of certainty, for if the stone in the act of throwing quitted the sling either sooner or later than it ought to do, the desired effect was sure to fail. Those who could use it properly, cast stones to a considerable distance and with much precision. In the present day (1800) the use of all these engines seems to be totally discontinued.
THROWING WITH THE HAND.--Throwing of heavy weights and stones with the hand was much practised in former times, and as this pastime required great strength and muscular exertion, it was a very proper exercise for military men. The Greeks, according to Homer, at the time of the siege of Troy, amused themselves with casting of the discus, which appears to have been a round flat plate of metal of considerable magnitude and very heavy. 1 "The discus of the ancients," says Dr Johnson, in his dictionary, "is sometimes called in English quoit, not improperly. The game of quoits is a game of skill; the discus was only a trial of strength, as among us to throw the hammer."
p. 62
THROWING BY THE LONDONERS.--In the twelfth century we are assured, that among the amusements practised by the young Londoners on holidays, was casting of stones, 1 darts, and other missive weapons. Bars of wood and iron were afterwards used for the same purpose, and the attention of the populace was so much engaged by this kind of exercise, that they neglected in great measure the practice of archery, which occasioned an edict to be passed in the thirty-ninth year of Edward III. prohibiting the pastimes of throwing of stones, wood, and iron, and recommending the use of the long-bow upon all convenient opportunities. 2
CASTING OF THE BAR AND HAMMER.--Casting of the bar is frequently mentioned by the romance writers as one part of a hero's education, and a poet of the sixteenth century thinks it highly commendable for kings and princes, by way of exercise, to throw "the stone, the barre, or the plummet." Henry VIII., after his accession to the throne, according to Hall and Holinshead, retained "the casting of the barre" among his favourite amusements. The sledge hammer was also used for the same purpose as the bar and the stone; and among the rustics, if Barclay be correct, an axletree.
An early instance of throwing the stone occurs in a manuscript of the thirteenth century; it is reproduced at the top of plate sixty-two. 3
* Throughout the reign of Henry VIII., encouraged by royal example, gentlemen were eager to take part in pedestrian as well as equestrian exercises. Sir William Forest, in his Poesye of Princelye Practice, holds that a gentleman should--
"In featis of maistries bestowe some diligence Too ryde, runne, lepe, or caste by violence Stone, barre, or plummett, or such other thinge It not refuseth any prince or kynge."
* Elyot's Governour names "labouryng with poyses made of ledde, and lifting and throwing the heavy stone or barre." At the commencement of the seventeenth century, these pastimes seem to have lost their relish among the higher classes of the people, and for this reason Peacham, in his Complete Gentleman, speaks of throwing the hammer as an exercise proper for soldiers in camp, or for the amusement of the prince's guard, but not so well "beseeming nobility."
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