2 THE FAMILY OF GALPIN OF
Penzance (supposed to mean Saint’s hill or headjand Cockpen,
red hill, and Alp or Albpen, white hill. Berg being also hill is
tautological and has been added afterwards in another language
when the meaning of the old name had become forgotten
through the country being occupied by people of a different
nationality. At any rate, the addition of " berg " shows that
the village stands on a hill and that " pen " is used in the sense
of hill.
The name of Galpin is now more common in France than
in England, and about the middle of last century George
Gaspard Galpin was president of the French Senate.
The earliest mention of the name occurs in Normandy,
before the Conquest, as Johannes de Galpenberg or de Monte- `
galpino at Evreux. Some years later it is met with as Galopin
and occurs repeatedly in that form in the early Norman annals.
There can be no doubt that one of that name came over to
England at the Conquest and probably all the Galpins in
England are descended from that one individual. There is no
mention of the name in England before that date, nor did any
Galpin come over in more recent times, among the Huguenot
immigrants, for instance, as far as I have been able to ascertain.
About a century after the Conquest the name occurs in
Staffordshire, Dorset, and Westmorland, and a little later in
the neighbourhood of London, Surrey, etc. The most numer-
ous group at an early date appears in Staffordshire, where they
continued to prosper for more than goo years until the time
of the Wars of the Roses, during which the whole family dis-
appeared from that neighbourhood without leaving a trace.
Another branch a little later went to the north and the name
there took the form of Gilpin, first mentioned in the time of
King john-Richard de Gilpin of Scaleby, Cumberland, and
Westmorland. What might be considered an intermediate
form, " Gelpin,” also occurs about the same date. The author
of T/ze Norman People considers that the two names are identical
on heraldic grounds, the arms being: as
Galpin or, a bear passant, sable.
Gilpin or, a boar passant, sable. A
 See Robson’s Hem/o’ry, etc.)
The two descriptions of the arms differ like the names by only
a single letter.