Memoirs of the Fultons of Lisburn
Chapter I
The Fulton Family
The following preliminary sketch has been compiled from various notes made by Dr. Robert Valpy Fulton, of Dunedin, N.Z., and other sources.
I.
With regard to the origin of the name, one writer says that Fulton, Fulltown, Fowltown, Fowlertown, Fullertown, and Fullerton come from a member of the king’s household, who in A.D. 1205 was granted a royal charter by King John, to supply the royal table with game.
There are two probable roots of the name—Fugl, meaning a bird or fowl, and Ful, meaning foul, muddy, swampy, etc., the one deriving it from the nature of the locality, the other from its visitants. The name Fullerton probably had a different origin, from either a fuller, a cloth-worker, or some Saxon name like Folkher. At any rate, Fulton and its variations are from very early dates clearly distinguishable from Fullerton, and the former is never found with the latter in one family.
The Fultons appear to have been of Saxon origin, and at an early date to have migrated up the east coast, eventually settling in Ayrshire, where to this day they exist in considerable numbers.
II.
There is, however, reason to believe that the whole of the Fultons did not migrate to Scotland. It will be seen, in the remarks upon arms farther on, that there were in the time of the Crusades a certain knight, Sir de Fulton de Holt—presumably the place of that name in Norfolk—and, in 1604, a Fulton family in Shropshire. There is also the indication, such as it is, afforded by the charter of King John just mentioned. At the present day, the name is of rare occurrence in England. Even in London and its suburbs, there are scarcely any outside the family of Sir Forrest Fulton. It is of course quite possible that the Fultons of Lisburn may have migrated to Ireland from the southern remnant which evidently still existed early in the seventeenth century, and the arms they are found using a century later seem to support this alternative, but on the whole I incline to think that they came from Ayrshire, which we certainly know did supply to Ulster others of the name.
