On 3 May 1679 a party of armed Presbyterians stopped a coach on open moorland five miles west of St Andrews and killed the Primate of Scotland in front of his daughter. The National Galleries of Scotland records the bare fact: he was "ambushed on Magus Moor near St Andrews on 3 May 1679, dragged from his carriage and murdered."
The man in the coach spelled his name Sharp. That missing letter is the first thing anyone researching a Sharpe line needs to understand.
Sharp or Sharpe: Which Spelling Is Scottish?
The census answers this better than any dictionary. At 1881, 8,807 people in Britain carried the spelling Sharpe, and 8,257 of them, almost ninety-four percent, were in England: Yorkshire 1,024, Lincolnshire 911, Leicestershire 779, with tiny Rutland densest at 714 per 100,000. Scotland held 474 in all.
Now the short spelling. Sharp was carried by 24,888 people in Britain, 4,369 of them Scots, and against population Scotland was denser at 117 per 100,000 to England's 84. Lanarkshire had 911, Fife 445, Perthshire 429.
So the honest summary is this. Sharp is a genuinely Scottish surname, common in the central belt and Fife. Sharpe is chiefly an English spelling of the same name, and where it appears in Scotland it is usually a Scottish Sharp family that picked up a final e, or an English family that moved north. Test both against your documents rather than assuming.
What Does the Name Mean?
It was a compliment. The Oxford-backed Dictionary of American Family Names gives Sharp as an English and Scottish nickname from Middle English sharp(e), "sharp, quick, smart, acute, keen-witted", behind which sits Old English scearp, and files Sharpe as a variant.
Two other roads lead to the same spelling: an Irish form standing for a Gaelic name meaning descendant of Géarán, and an Americanized form of German Scharf. Nicknames were handed out by neighbors rather than inherited from a founder, which is why no single Sharp family stands behind all the others, as our history of the Colt name and our guide to what a Scottish surname means both show.
Who Was Archbishop James Sharp?
A Banffshire man who rose further than almost any Scot of his generation and was hated for it. Born on 4 May 1618 at Banff Castle, son of William Sharp and Isabel Leslie, he graduated from King's College, Aberdeen in 1637 and became a regent at the University of St Andrews. He was minister of Crail from 1648, was captured at Worcester in 1651, and spent the later 1650s in London for the moderate Resolutioner party. His county also produced the Duffs of Braco.
After the Restoration he was consecrated Archbishop of St Andrews and Primate of Scotland at Westminster Abbey in December 1661 and led the suppression of Presbyterian dissent. To the men who had signed the National Covenant of 1638 that was not a change of mind but a betrayal for office; Historic Environment Scotland records that he was criticized for persecuting Covenant signatories. He had already survived one attempt on his life, in 1668, when James Mitchell fired into his coach in Edinburgh and hit Bishop Andrew Honeyman instead.
What Stands on Magus Muir Now?
Magus Muir was the rough grazing of the lands of Magus, recorded as "Muire de Magask" in 1686. On it now stand two monuments of 1877, designed by John Whyte-Melville and listed together by Historic Environment Scotland. One is a rubble pyramid with a Latin tablet marking the killing. The other encloses a slab reading: "Here lies Thomas Brown, James Wood, Andrew Sword, John Weddell and John Clyde who suffered martyrdom on Magus Muir for their adherence to the Word of God and Scotland's Covenanted work of Reformation."
Those five were taken prisoner at Bothwell Bridge in June 1679 and hanged on the same moor five months later in reprisal for the archbishop's death. The memorial to the murdered Primate and the grave of the men killed in his name stand within sight of each other, the sharpest commentary on the whole quarrel. The paperwork survives too: a porteous roll of Ayr dated 12 September 1679, held by the National Records of Scotland, charges men with "serving under & protecting the Cruell murderers of the late archbishop of St andrews". The decade that followed is the subject of our account of the Killing Time.
Sharp himself was buried in Holy Trinity Church, St Andrews, under a three-tier marble monument commissioned in 1679 by his son Sir William Sharp of Scotscraig, with a relief of the murder on its lower stage. When the tomb was opened in 1849 it was empty. The upheaval behind all of it is covered in our account of Scotland's role in the Reformation.
Why Does an Antiquary Named Sharpe Matter Here?
Because of one of the neater coincidences in Scottish book history. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, born at Hoddam in Dumfriesshire in 1781, was an antiquary and caricaturist who contributed ballads to Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border and published Metrical Legends in 1807 and the Ballad Book in 1823.
He also edited James Kirkton's secret history of the Church of Scotland and Robert Law's memorials, the very Presbyterian sources that damn Archbishop Sharp hardest. The National Library of Scotland holds the proof-sheets of that Kirkton edition as MS.540, 273 leaves dated 1817 and 1829, with Sharpe's corrections, Ballantyne's printing instructions and letters from Scott. A man named Sharpe spent years seeing the case against a man named Sharp through the press.
His family had held Hoddom Castle since 1690, selling it in 1877, and his own surname was assembled rather than inherited: his father had been born a Kirkpatrick, of the family in our history of Kirkpatrick of Closeburn. He died unmarried in 1851.
How Should a Sharp or Sharpe Line Be Traced?
- Search Sharp and Sharpe as one set, adding Scharp for older material. The final e is a clerk's habit more often than a family marker.
- Let geography guide you. A Sharpe line with Leicestershire, Lincolnshire or Rutland behind it is probably English; a Scottish line is likelier in Lanarkshire, Fife or Perthshire under the short spelling.
- Do not assume descent from the archbishop: his was one Banffshire family among many unconnected Sharps.
- For a Fife line, read the Crail and St Andrews kirk session registers beside the parish registers, using our ScotlandsPeople walkthrough.
Own a Piece of Sharpe Heritage
Two spellings, two countries and two irreconcilable ancestors is a lot for one range to cover. The Scottish pieces are a mug, a garden flag and a framed keepsake ornament, with the family crest above a tartan background on each. The woven blanket and the Christmas ornament made under the name's Irish branding sit on the Irish National Tartan, as every Irish design here does. Neither Sharp nor Sharpe has ever had a weave recognized to it in either country, so that Scottish background is a styling decision and nothing more, a distinction our explainer on tartan and who may wear what keeps in view.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Sharpe Name
What does the surname Sharpe mean?
Keen-witted. It is a nickname from Middle English sharp(e) and Old English scearp, and Sharpe is recorded as a spelling variant of Sharp rather than a separate name.
Is Sharpe a Scottish or an English surname?
Predominantly English in that spelling: 8,257 of Britain's 8,807 Sharpes were in England in 1881, against 474 in Scotland. The short form Sharp is the strongly Scottish one.
Is there a Clan Sharpe?
No. There is no chief of Sharp or Sharpe and no clan organization, which is what you would expect of a nickname that arose independently in many districts.
Sources and Further Reading
- National Records of Scotland, porteous roll of Ayr, 12 September 1679 (JC26/53/4) — the charge of protecting the archbishop's killers.
- Historic Environment Scotland: Magus Muir memorials (LB15808) — the 1877 monuments and the five names.
- National Library of Scotland, MS.540 — proof-sheets of Sharpe's Kirkton edition.
- National Galleries of Scotland: James Sharp — the ambush of 3 May 1679.
- Fife Place-name Data, University of Glasgow: Magus Muir — the 1686 form.
- Church Monuments Society: the Sharp monument — the 1679 tomb.
- James Sharp, Archbishop of St Andrews — Banff Castle, Crail and the empty tomb; it dates the killing to 2 May, against the 3 May given by the National Galleries.
- Hoddom Castle — the Sharpes from 1690.
- Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe — Hoddam and the Kirkton and Law editions.
- Dictionary of American Family Names: Sharp — the nickname and the Irish and German routes.
- Sharpe at the 1881 census — 8,807 in Britain, 474 in Scotland.
- Sharp at the 1881 census — 24,888 in Britain, 4,369 in Scotland.
- Sharp in the 1901 Scottish census — 5,093 bearers, 147th.
For name-specific keepsakes connected with this spelling, explore the Sharpe family heritage gift collection. Its designs use commemorative family-emblem and tartan artwork; your own records remain the guide to ancestry.