18.4 4xgreat granduncle Thomas Sporne: Contentious National School master of Norfolk

My 5xgreat grandparents Thomas Sporne and his wife MaryBeck had eight children, including my 4xgreat grandmother MargaretSporne. They married in January 1796 in Burnham Westgate, Norfolk, and their first child, a son named after his father, was baptised that December.

After Thomas Sporne was baptised on 11 December 1796, little is heard of him until the death of his father Thomas Sporne in 1827; he is the ‘Thomas Sporne, Farmer, Wormegay’ who was granted administration of the will in probate records of 1828.

He is found in the 1841 census, aged 45 (rounded down), at Wormegay Priory, occupation Farmer. Living with him is a George Sporne, aged 10 (who later turns out to be the son of his younger brother John), and a female servant, 45 year old Sarah Thomas. It seems that he was also the Church Warden at Wormegay, and taught at the National School. On 14 March 1844, he wrote a supportive letter to the Vicar with reference to an incident whereby the incumbent had refused to bury a child:

 (Source: Google books. Facts and tracts in evidence of the apathy, dereliction, and degradation of ... - William Henry Henslowe - Google Books)

Later in this tract, there is a letter – also from Thomas Sporne – defending his integrity and responding to the question in another letter of ‘Who is Tom Sporne?’

In 1847, he appears listed in the poll book for Wormegay. Google Books also has a pamphlet Reasons for not preaching in aid of “The National Society for the Education... - Google Books reproducing a sermon penned by ‘the Perpetual Curate’ of Wormegay and Tottenhill, William Henry Henslowe, published in 1850. This is deeply critical of Sporne’s conduct of the National School, and in particular its departure from teaching the scriptures. It seems that Thomas Sporne – amongst others – interrupted the delivery of the sermon at Tottenhill Church on Whitsunday May 19^th 1850, with a ‘violent brawl’. The preacher is fervently against both the concept of the National School and the person of the Schoolmaster (and School Mistress).

A year later, at the time of the 1851 census, he is still described as Schoolmaster at the National School in Wormegay. He is 57, single, and gives his birthplace as Burnham Westgate. Sarah Thomas, who was his servant ten years earlier, is now described as School Mistress. Living with them is his ‘housekeeper’, his widowed mother Mary Beck, born Burnham Overy. They have a ten-year old Boarder and schoolboy, Thomas Butter.

However, by 1856, Craven & Co’s Commercial Directory of Norfolk at Ancestry shows Thomas Sporne in Wormegay, working as a Tax Collector. By the 1861 census, he is listed at ‘Severalls’, aged 64, single and still a Tax Collector. Whether this means he had given up (or been sacked from) his role as National School Master is not clear. His housekeeper is now 26 year old Martha Wicks from Tottenhill.

The Norwich Mercury of 21 September 1861 carried a notice of sale of a ‘valuable and compact farm, in Wormegay … the property of Mr Thomas Sporne’. Perhaps his other roles kept him from farming the land himself, as it is in the occupation of ‘Mr Charles Edwards’. At the time of the 1861 census, a Charles Edwards was at Priory Cottage, ‘farmer of 40 acres’, with a large family.

Three years later, Thomas Sporne and his housekeeper Martha Wicks travelled to London, where they were married on 22 July 1864. Both are described as ‘of full age’ (Thomas would have been 68, his bride 29 years old). Perhaps they married in London to avoid wagging tongues and prying eyes in their home parish, not only because of the age difference, but also the local clergy’s opinion of Thomas in the matter of the National School.

On the marriage register of St James, Shoreditch, Thomas is described as a ‘Yeoman’ of Wormegay, son of Thomas Sporne (deceased), a Carrier. His bride’s father was Noah Wicks, a Farmer. Thomas signs the register with something of a flourish. Their witnesses are William Dudley and Esther ? – who also witnessed other weddings in the Church, so were perhaps not known to Thomas and Martha, but witnesses associated with the Church.

They were married by banns, so had presumably resided in London for a while before the marriage. Thomas’ brother John Sporne was living in Shoreditch at the time, so perhaps they stayed with him and his family prior to the wedding.

It seems that Thomas may have failed to sell his farm, as in September 1864, a few months after his marriage, he is declared bankrupt, still described as a Farmer (notice in The Suffolk Chronicle, 10 September 1864, at FindMyPast). The Lynn Advertiser of 13 August 1864 provides some detail:

At the time of the bankruptcy hearing, Thomas was a ‘prisoner for debt in Whitecross street’.

Whitecross street was actually a debtors’ prison in Islington, London. Thomas’ level of debt was high at £3000 (the equivalent today of around £390,000!). TNA has a record from Norfolk Record Office detailing the amount Thomas owed to a Mr Hoff for the mortgage on a property at Wormegay – possibly the farm (MC 73/28, 521 x 7).

The Chancery Suit mentioned is also at TNA. The catalogue record notes that it was prosecuted by William and Ann Groom against Thomas and John Sporne, and that additional defendants Aaron Wales and ‘Margaret his wife’ (née Margaret Sporne, Thomas’ sister), and a number of people with the surname Gant (cousins of the Wales’), were added in 1863 (C 16/139/G4). Thomas, John and Margaret Sporne’s sister Ann married a William Groom in 1826, so these are presumably the prosecutors in the case against her siblings.

Thomas’ role as Tax Collector was either a secondary one, or short-lived, as it is not mentioned in the notice of his death in the Bury and Norwich Post of 4 February 1868. 

He died at the National School, so may still have had a role in teaching, or managing the school. His previous roles as Farmer and Churchwarden are also mentioned. He was buried in Wormegay churchyard on 24 January 1868.

It seems that his widow, Martha Sporne, stayed on at the School, acting as School Mistress, until 1869. The Norfolk News at FindMyPast carried a report on 5 June that year that she had been given ten days’ notice to quit the premises by the School trustees as she held the position against their wishes.

A postscript to Thomas’ intriguing and contentious life is the marriage of his widow, Martha Wix/Wicks to his nephew George Sporne, a widower (son of his brother John Sporne), in London in 1872. But that’s anotherstory.

For the sources mentioned in bold, see blogpost: MyRoots: Lesly's family history: Sources and resources: A quick view