Clasper Family History

The earliest records for the surname Clasper are in the Northumberland area of England in the Ponteland and Morpeth districts, and in the Durham area of Whickham. They are concentrated in these areas for more than a century when they then begin appearing in and around the Newcastle Upon Tyne area. They later branch out to the Chester Le Street and Sunderland areas of Durham, and by the 1800's are in South Shields in County Durham. The next branch is in Easington, County Durham, and by the 1850's a branch is in Tynemouth. A branch also moves to London with John Hawks Clasper the son of the famous rower Harry, and a branch also moves to Scotland. However, the vast majority of records show the Clasper surname in the Northumberland and Durham Counties of the U.K. Branches also extended overseas to Australia, U.S.A., New Zealand and Canada.
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The following information was received from Barry Dent 01/07/04;-

I'm assembling a list of the 1000 or so names being researched by subscribers to the northpennineancestors.co.uk website. With John's help, and a good look at the One Name Study data, I've come up with the entry below and hope that it does justice to the spirit of the name:

CLASPER. Not in the “standard works”. However, the Oxford English Dictionary allows CLASPER as a maker of clasps, especially of books, but can offer no written reference earlier than 1885! Research shows it to be an almost exclusively North-Eastern name and some traditions give it a Hanoverian origin. This is no more satisfactory than the OED’s version, since the name is known to be considerably older than Hanoverian immigration. Clasps for garments have been valued items since mediaeval times so a maker or dealer could well have adopted the name… though the majority seem to have preferred to be BUCKLERs! GLASPER can be a variant. (ONS)
 
GLASPER. Most probably a variant spelling of CLASPER, q.v.