The Boase surname with the limited variations of Boas, or occasiopnally Boaze seems to be confined to Cornwall in the far south west of England. The earliest records of the name are in the Parish of Paul in the late 1500’s. It is unlikely that any researchers will be able to progress further back from that date as it is known that the church records were destroyed when the Spanish landed and burned the church in 1595. As far as I can ascertain there were at least 3 men , quite probably brothers, bearing the name at that date. From that date the families gradually spread across the county although there was, and still is a concentration of the name in the far west of the county.
As with many Cornish families there was a preponderance of ‘Ag Labs’ and miners and with the demise of the Cornish mining industry and the expansion in the new world there is a move abroad by many members of the family, some appear only to have got as far as Liverpool – hence the number of Boase events in that city and the existence of several families and businesses still in that city, but many moved much further afield One of the wealthier branches of the family moved to Scotland and for a while in the mid to late 1800’s there were a large number of Boases in the Dundee area. There are still a few in Scotland but not a huge number. There was a huge influx of Boase families to Australia but, there, it is quite marked that there are few families who bear the name now – the women must have been of stronger stock than the men! From the earliest days of immigration some Boases moved to America and as is to be expected there are large numbers there today spread across many states.
One point of interest - in the US census records of the early 1900’s there are 3 or 4 families with the Boase surname who are described as ‘Negro’ had they adopted the name or had it developed spontaneously within that community?
The only other incident of the name, which is probably not directly connected with Cornwall is on mainland Europe, there are a few recorded events in Germany and the Netherlands, and it is not clear yet whether this is as a result of a Cornish family moving or a completely different name.
At an early stage in the migration of the name families appear in the Falmouth area of Cornwall and here is one of the conundrums of the name – how do you pronounce it…. As a ‘BOWS’ from Penzance my own family would have been horrified to hear it pronounced ‘BOAZ’ in Falmouth but that is how it is done by some families. I am aware today of at least one family in the English Midlands who use the Boaz pronunciation as well as some in the Falmouth area. However the ‘Boase – to rhyme with Rose’ seems to predominate and has certainly spread as far afield as the US and Australia.