Spong Family Worldwide

Coat of Arms

The Spong Coat of Arms is a white ermine cross on a red background.

Brief Spong History

by I. G. Spong

Recent research has indicated that the Spong family was established some 1200 yeras ago in the Heathlands of Surrey, England.  There are many Spong connections throughout UK, USA, Australia, Canada, Holland and South America. Most of the Spongs emigrated to these parts of the world and virtually all can be traced back to their British origins.

Another early recorded Spong was a Ricardus de Spong, or Ricardus del Spong, or Ricardus de la Spong, who is reputed to have been in York, England during the census of 1367. Nothing else is known about old Richard at this time. The word "spong" appears to have possible Nordic origin. There is an old Swedish word Spöng. Indeed an English dictionary refers to it as being an Old English word of Nordic origin and meaning an irregular projection of land. Perhaps the English meaning comes from a Swedish man-made peninsular or ford.

Family history records Spong family members having built the Golden Hind, Sir Francis Drake's famous ship used against the Spanish armada.

Spong family members seem to have a particular penchant for the arts. H. W. (Walter Brookes) Spong (1851-1929) and Jean Spong (1868-1946) were Australian artists. Others were musicians. Spongs have also been involved heavily in church leadership, politics, and law. There was at one time a factory in England called Spong & Co. It claimed to be "Manufacturers of Domestic Machinery" and was established in 1856.

Modern famous Spongs include an American Senator from Virginia, a robotics scientist, a conservation activist, several university professors, and a number of church leaders. The family coat of arms seems to come from a history of church leadership. There is also a town called Spong in Cambodia. Whether or not there is a family link or merely a linguistic coincidence is not known.

What is a Spong?

Source: Webster's 1913 Dictionary Online

Webster's says the etymology is uncertain, but a spong is an irregular, narrow, projecting part of a field.

Origin of the Name Spong

- Spöng or Spång

Summary of a letter to Mark Spong

A Swedish colleague of Mark Spong's, Professor Rolf Johansson, of the Lund Institute of Technology in Lund, Sweden, wrote the following about the origin of the word spong.

"The spelling of the word in modern Swedish is actually not Spöng but Speng (or Spång) but its pronunciation is not different from the English one.

"The current meaning of the word among the Scandinavian dialects (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish) is that of a primitive river crossing to make traveling easier at fords. Such a facility may include various means of primitive civil engineering like land fill, primitive bridges etc. The term is sometimes used in military contexts when describing how to cross a river without bridges or boats or wading. Sometimes the word simply means narrow bridge.

"There are several small towns or villages throughout Scandinavia, typically situated at rivers, with names including "speng" and the river name similar to all the towns of "-ford" or "-bridge" in Britain and the "-furt"-towns in Germany. There is a traditional restaurant 60 km from Lund called "Kalle pe Spengen" (Charlie at the narrow bridge). The Scandinavian homologue of "ford" is "fjord" which originally denoted the shallow water at the threshold of a fjord but over the centuries it started to denote the whole fjord complex."

The Joke

No Spong web site would be complete without including the well-known Spong-Fong joke: -

Senators William B. Spong of Virginia and Hiram Fong of Hawaii sponsored a bill recommending the mass ringing of church bells to welcome the arrival in Hong Kong of the U.S. Table Tennis Team after its tour of Communist China.

The bill failed to pass, cheating the Senate out of passing the Spong-Fong Hong Kong Ping Pong Ding Dong Bell Bill.