And did.
My young poet had "signed on" under the name of Thomas Webb.

It was not assumed.

For years he had been known in the haberdashery as Webb.
There was more to it, however; there was a tail to the kite.

The English have an inordinate fondness for hyphens, for mother's family name and grandmother's family name and great-grandmother's, with the immediate paternal cognomen as a period.

Thomas' full name was a rosary, if you like, of yeomen, of soldiers, of farmers, of artists, of gentle bloods, of dreamers.