Bice Family Crest, Coat of Arms and Name History

This interesting and unusual name is a variant of the surname Byas, which is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and is a geographical name for a ‘dweller at the house in the bend’.  The surname acquired from the Old English pre 7th Century ‘byge’, a bend, and ‘hus’, a house. Geographical surnames among the earliest formed, since both natural and human-made characteristics in the landscape provided easily recognisable distinguishing names.  The new surname can found as Byas(s), Bice and Byce.  The arms given to one Robert Bice, who was Sheriff of Dublin in 1569, consisted of a shield, quartered diagonally gold and blue, with a red rose, with the stalk torn from the original stem, in the first and fourth quarters, and a gold fleur-de-lis in the second and third quarters. More common variations are: Buice, Byice, Boice, Baice, Bioce, Bicey, Bbice, Biceh, Biece, Beice.

The surname Bice first found in Surrey, where they had given lands by King William, their true Lord, after the Norman Invasion in 1066 AD. The very first recording spelling of the family was shown to be that of Adam de Byus, dated 1275, in the Hundred Rolls of Lincolnshire. It was during the reign of King Edward 1st, who was known as “The Hammer of the Scots” dated 1272-1307.  Surname all over the country became a necessity with the introduction of personal taxation.  It came to be known as Poll Tax in England.  Surnames all over the country began to develop with unique and shocking spelling varieties of the original one.

Some of the people with the surname Bice who arrived in the Canada in the 18th century included Mr John Bice U.E. who settled in Canada c. 178. Some of the individuals with the surname Bice who landed in Australia in the 19th century included  William Henry Bice, aged 21, who arrived in South Australia in 1858 aboard the ship “Confiance”.

Blazons & Genealogy Notes

Notes: None. Blazon: (granted to Robert Bice, Sheriff of Dublin, 1569, by Narbonne, Ulster). Per saltier or and azure two roses gules slipped and leaved vert in pale and as many fleurs-de-lis of the first in fesse. Crest—A falcon preying on a partridge, all proper.