GOWER. "All our Antiquaries agree that this family is one of the oldest in the county of York, and of Anglo-Saxon origin, though they differ as to its patriarch, whom some will have to be Sir Alan Gower, said to be sheriff of that county at the time of the Norman Conquest, A.D. lOGG, and lord of Stittcnham in the same county, now possessed by the Duke of Sutherland, the chief of the house while others with greater probability assert that it descended from one Guhyer, whose son, called William Fitz-Guhyer of Stittenham, was charged with a mark for his lauds in the sheriff's account, 11G7, 13 Henry II., and that Alan was very likely his son." Collins' Peerage 17G8, V. 340. The poet Gower is said to have been of the Stittenham stock, though he did not bear the same arms. Lelaud says : " The house of Gower the poet yet remaineth at Switenham (Stittenham), in Yorkshire, and divers of them sjns have been knightes." The noble Gowers pronounce their name as if written Gore, but a jeomanry family in the south of England make it rhyme with ' power,' or ' shower.'

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.