Ebden as a distinct surname occurs from the late middle ages,but surely ultimately the same as Hebden,from the village near Burnsal in the West Riding of Yorkshire.I was always told that it was because of the soft pronounciation of 'H' in the Yorkshire dialect.Ebdens from the late middle ages can be found in Yorkshire (including York) and Lincolnshire.There is a separate group of Ebdens to be found in Devon.
For a family tree of descendants of Ellen Ebden of King's Lynn,my ancestoress,who died 7th September 1702 and buried at St Margaret's church,Kings Lynn,see
http://www.manfamily.org/Ebden_Family.htmThis includes John Ebden 1751-1834 of Haughley,Suffolk,surgeon,
his son John Bardwell Ebden of Cape Colony (South Africa) and his
son Charles Hotson Ebden of Melbourne,Australia,who were both successful merchants.
I am decended from John Ebden of Haughley's second wife,Elizabeth Collett,and through her son the Reverend James Collett Ebden,fellow of Gonville & Caius college,Cambridge and tutor at Trinity Hall,later headmaster of Ipswich grammar school and then rector of Great Stukely and Kings Ripton churches,Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire).