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William Spire
b.11 Oct 1809 Buckland, Gloucestershire, England
d.21 Dec 1872 Buckland, Gloucestershire, England
Family tree▼ (edit)
m. 15 Sep 1794
(edit)
m. 8 Jul 1833
Facts and Events
William Spire was born on 11th October 1809 at Laverton in the parish of Buckland, Gloucestershire, where he was baptised two weeks after his birth. He was the son of Elizabeth Spire, formerly Hale, and her husband William Spire, a weaver. Young William’s parents had ten children, but only four of them survived to adulthood: Thomas, who was baptised in 1796, Jeremiah baptised in 1803, William in 1809 and Elizabeth baptised in 1817. There were therefore significant gaps in age between the surviving siblings. As a young man, William left Laverton and moved nearly forty miles south to Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire. On 8th July 1833, aged 23, he married Elizabeth Clark at the parish church there. She was also 23 and from Wootton Bassett. Shortly after they married William brought Elizabeth back to Laverton. They had a daughter, Amelia Ann, baptised at Buckland in 1834. Amelia’s baptism record describes William as being a labourer. In 1836 they had a son, Jephunneh, who was born at Laverton, but baptised at the Independent Chapel in the neighbouring parish of Broadway, which was part of the Congregational denomination. In 1838 they had a daughter, Mary Clark. Sadly, young Mary died when just over a year old in 1839. In 1840 William and Elizabeth had a daughter called Julia Clark, who was also born at Laverton. On 2nd March 1840 William joined Gloucestershire Constabulary, which had been created the previous year. When he joined, he was described as a labourer, and 5’11” tall. He initially served as a police constable. The family therefore left Buckland and were posted to various locations around Gloucestershire for William’s work. The 1841 census finds William, Elizabeth, their three surviving children and William’s sister (confusingly also called Elizabeth Spire) living at Long Marston. William and his wife Elizabeth went on to have a son, Jabez William, baptised there in 1842. Later that year, on 1st November 1842, William was promoted to the rank of sergeant. In 1843 the family was living at Fairford, where they had a daughter called Emily. Sadly she died when just under a year old, when the family was living in Stroud. By 1845 the family had moved again to Dursley. Elizabeth gave birth there on 13th October 1845 to a son, James Sperry Albert. The “Sperry” was a reference to the Sperry family of Laverton, who were distant cousins of William on his paternal grandmother’s side. Elizabeth died seventeen days later from influenza on 30th October 1845, aged 35. Baby James was baptised the same day that Elizabeth’s death was registered. William’s five surviving children were aged between eleven years old and seventeen days old when their mother died. At the time of Elizabeth’s death, William’s parents were both still living in Laverton. They were in receipt of life annuities totalling a comfortable income of £60 per year (arising from the will of William senior’s late sister’s husband, Jeremiah Knill, who had died in 1837). Whereas William senior had been described as a weaver when William junior was a boy, by this time he was described as a farmer, a somewhat higher status position. William’s parents were therefore able to send for William’s motherless children, who were thus brought up in Laverton for the next few years by their grandparents. William left his children with his parents in Laverton and continued to work for Gloucestershire Constabulary, being posted to Stow-on-the-Wold. Whilst working there he joined the Ebenezer Strict and Particular Baptist Chapel in Well Lane, having apparently previously fluctuated between the Church of England, Congregationalism and Methodism. Whilst in Stow-on-the-Wold, it also became evident that William had trouble with his heart. This was said to be brought on after running so fast and so long in trying to apprehend some young men who were making a disturbance in the street. After this chase he was left unable to work, and he was discharged from the police on grounds of ill health on 1st March 1848, aged 38. His character as a policeman was described as good. William returned to live with his parents and children in Laverton. The 1851 census finds them all living in the same house somewhere in the parish of Buckland (the census does not record a more precise address, but seems reasonably likely to have been in the hamlet of Laverton). William was described as a tea dealer at this time. William’s father died at the start of 1854, being buried at Buckland on 5th January 1854. Less than two years later, William’s mother also died, being buried at Buckland on 15th September 1855. As well as the grief of losing his parents, the family also lost the income that had been provided during their lifetimes. With William relatively limited in the work he was able to do on account of his heart, the family found themselves living in relative poverty. In 1858 William’s eldest son, Jephunneh, married Ellen Lucretia Haines, one of their neighbours in Laverton. The following year, William’s eldest daughter, Amelia Ann, married John Thomas Haines, brother of Ellen Lucretia. Both Jephunneh’s and Amelia’s marriage certificates describe William as being a labourer. William’s first grandchild was his daughter Amelia’s eldest son, born in 1860. The 1861 census finds William living in Laverton with his three younger children and working as an agricultural labourer. His daughter Amelia and her young family lived next door, whilst Jephunneh and his wife were elsewhere in Laverton. Around this time, William began running a small Baptist congregation from his house in Laverton. Initially they had a series of visiting preachers to lead them there, but gradually William began to preach too. On 3rd February 1862, aged 52, William married again. His second wife was Caroline Matthews Minchin (in most records simply called Caroline Matthews) and they married at Willersey, where she had been living, about four miles north-east of Laverton. It is quite likely that they had met several years earlier – she had been a member of the Ebenezer Chapel at Stow-on-the-Wold in the mid-1840s when William had also been a member of that congregation. Caroline worked as a schoolteacher and was also a poet, being a frequent contributor to the Gospel Standard, a Baptist newspaper. The 1871 census finds William, Caroline and two of his children living at Laverton, with William described as a Baptist preacher. William lived to be 63 years old, and he saw eight grandchildren born in his lifetime. William died at Laverton on 21st December 1872 from heart disease and dropsy. He was buried in the churchyard at Buckland, with his gravestone describing him as a Baptist Minister. The inscription concludes with a couple of lines of verse which William himself had written: “Christ will my dust refine And raise it from the grave I in his likeness there shall shine And prove his power to save.” Caroline survived William by eleven years. References
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