18.5 4xgreat grand uncle John Sporne: Carrier from Burnham to Lynn, later Grocer

My 5xgreat grandparents Thomas Sporne and his wife Mary Beck had eight children, including my 4xgreat grandmother Margaret Sporne. They married in January 1796 in Burnham Westgate, Norfolk. Thomas Sporne died in 1827; when his widow died in 1860, she was described as ‘Widow of Thomas Sporne, Carrier from Burnham to Lynn and Norwich’ on her death certificate.

Their third child was John Sporne, born and baptised on 23 March 1802. Nothing else is heard of him until his marriage, aged about 23, on 10 November 1825, at nearby Stanhoe with Barwick. He married Susan Payne and their first child, Lucy, was baptised in October the following year. Her father is described as a ‘Carrier’ on her baptism record, so he presumably was in business with his own father. Sadly, Lucy died a month later, being buried at Burnham on 23 November 1826. 

His father, Thomas Sporne, was buried at Burnham on 14 November 1827. John had baptised his second child, a son, Henry, on 4 November that year, once again described as a Carrier. Although his older brother Thomas Sporne, a farmer, Church Warden and National School Master of Wormegay, was granted administration of their father’s estate at probate in 1828, perhaps John continued the business he had worked with his father previously. I hope to access a copy of the will at the Norfolk Record Office at some point.

Pigot’s Directory of 1830, at Ancestry, confirms that John Sporne continued to operate as a Carrier, both to Lynn Regis (Kings Lynn) and Norwich:

A similar notice appears in 1839, but by the time of the 1841 census, his occupation has changed to Grocer. He is living at Front Street, Burnham Westgate, with wife Susan and five children. They are still there ten years later, when John is described as ‘Shopkeeper’. By the time of the 1861 census, John and his family have moved to Shoreditch in London, where he is described as ‘General shopkeeper, unemployed’. Only their youngest son, Thomas, is living with them.

John Sporne died and was buried in Shoreditch in 1866. He and his wife Susan Payne had eight children in all, several of whom have interesting stories to follow, including Henry Sporne and George Sporne:

Henry Sporne: 1^st cousin x 5 removed: Stationer accused of embezzlement

My 4xgreat granduncle John Sporne and his wife had eight children. After their first child, Lucy, died aged just one month, their second child was son Henry, born in 1827. By 1851, he has moved to London and is working as a tin plate maker in Shoreditch. He married later that year, and had five children with wife Susan by 1861, when he is described as a Gas Meter Maker. They had two further children. Until the 1881 census, he is described as a Gas Engineer, but by the time his 18 year old daughter is baptised in 1883, he is working as a stationer.

On 1 May 1882, a Henry Sporne, aged 53 (b1829) was convicted at the Old Bailey of embezzlement of several sums of money ‘received on account of the justices of the peace of the city of London, and also unlawfully falsifying ‘certain books and accounts’. Ancestry has a record of him being sentenced at the Central Criminal Court to six months imprisonment without hard labour. This may or may not be the same Henry Sporne. On his daughter Henrietta’s baptism in 1883, his address is shown as 270 Fulham Road. The family is still there, and he is still working as a stationer, by the time of the 1891 census. Perhaps his work offered too great a temptation for embezzlement. In 1911, he has moved back to Norfolk, now a widower, living with his nephew Edward (Publican and Farmer) and family in Fincham. He died there in 1913, aged 86.

George Sporne, Miller. Married his uncle’s widow, ran away to NZ?

My 4xgreat granduncle John Sporne and his wife had eight children (my first cousins 5xremoved), nieces and nephews to my 4xgreat grandmother Margaret Sporne. Their third child was a son, George, born in 1831. Ten years later, he is living with his uncle Thomas Sporne, a Farmer of Wormegay, who later ran the local National School. At the time of the 1851 census, he is living with his parents and siblings in Burnham, apprenticed to what looks like ‘Miller’ on the census form. In 1854, he married Ann Addison in Fincham, Norfolk, and had four children with her between 1854 and 1860. In the 1861 census, now aged 30, he is a Miller in his own right, working out of Norfolk Mills - Shouldham Thorpe Fodderstone tower windmill. This page has a lengthy history of the mill and its occupiers, although it seems that George Sporne was only there a few short years between about 1858 and 1863. The property has been extensively restored and was up for sale as a four bedroom converted mill for £700k in August 2021. One of his descendants was in touch with me several years ago, and has made a number of helpful notes on the Norfolk Mills webpages.

In 1869, the post office directory lists him as ‘Miller’, Fincham, Downham. In the 1871 census, he is living at Mill Cottage, Fincham, working as a Miller and Baker, employing one man. He is now 39 years old and a widower with four children. His wife Ann died aged just 37, a few days before the census was taken. The ‘disability’ column includes a note that he is deaf – perhaps from the noise of the mills he’d been working since the age of 19 or so. On 13 March 1872, George married his Uncle Thomas’ widow, Martha née Wix/Wicks at St James, Shoreditch. Both are widowed, of full age (he was about 40, she a few years younger), and resident in Shoreditch at the time. He is a Miller, son of John Sporne, Grocer. Their witnesses are Maria Louisa Sporne and Charles Sporne; these are his younger brother and his wife. He and Martha returned to Norfolk and settled in Fincham, where they had two children, George Frederick (1873) and Albert Charles (1876).

On 12 October 1878, aged about 47, G Sporne, Miller & Baker, Fincham announces in the local newspaper that he has passed his business of 16 years to his two sons [by his first wife Ann] Thomas and John. The announcement was published a day after his daughter Harriet Eliza's death aged 17. A few months later, on 8 February 1879, according to the Norfolk Mills website, the Lynn Advertiser carried a notice to the effect that “I, George Sporne of Fincham do hereby give notice that I will not be answerable for any debts my wife Martha Sporne may contract after this date. George Sporne Witness William James Harris”. The website also suggests that George left Martha and their two young sons to emigrate to New Zealand in around 1879/80, which might tie in with the notice about her debts. He is still listed on the 1880 electoral roll at Fincham, occupying ‘freehold house and buildings, Downham Road’.

In the 1881 census, Martha Sporne is living at Fincham with her sons aged 7 and 4, described as married and head of household. At the time of the 1891 census, she is living next door to the National School from which she had been ejected after her first husband’s death in 1868. She is described as married and living on own means. Her two sons are still living with her (The Genealogist), the eldest, George Frederick, is a Pupil Teacher and the youngest, Albert Charles, a ‘monitor at school’ – so their mother’s previous contentious association (or, perhaps, her first husband’s) with the school does not seem to have done them any harm. She died at Fincham in 1899, aged 65.

I have not found any passenger list information for her miller husband online, but there is certainly a George Sporne listed at Eden, Auckland, New Zealand in electoral rolls and city directories from around 1887 onwards. In 1900, a year after his first wife died, he married Hannah Burton. They may, of course, have been together for some time but only married once he was free to do so. He died in 1903 and was buried at Waikamute Cemetery, Auckland, New Zealand, aged 72. He is described on the gravestone (BillionGraves) as ‘beloved husband of Hannah Sporne’. The stone is engraved with a touching verse:

“I saw him suffering day by day it caused me bitter grief to see him slowly pine away and could not give relief Not dead to me I loved him dear not lost but gone before He lives with me in memory dear and will for ever more”.

But what of the children George left behind in England?

His two eldest sons by his first wife, Thomas and John, took over the mill and bakery on their father’s retirement in 1878. The Norfolk Mills website suggests that they dissolved their partnership in 1891, but Thomas is still listed as a Baker at Fincham in a directory of 1896, and at the time of the 1901 census, is shown at ‘Steam Mills’ on Fincham Common, working as a Miller and Baker on his own account, which it seems he continued to do until the mid 1910s. By the 1911 census he is described as a Miller out of engagement. He died in 1921. His brother John moved to Bedfordshire, where he became a ‘furnace man at foundry (milling engineers), and died in 1928. Their youngest brother Edward also worked as a baker and miller, but in later life took up running his father-in-law’s pub, The Swan Inn, Fincham, alongside farming. He died in 1926.

His two sons from his second marriage to Martha Wix/Wicks were still very young when he (reportedly) left for a new life in New Zealand. Although Frederick George Sporne started work as a Pupil Teacher at the National School in Wormegay, by 1902 he has found his way to London, where he married Emmie Durham at Tooting on 26 July. On the marriage register he is described as a Clerk, son of George Sporne, deceased, of independent means. It seems that he was a Clerk in the Criminal Justice system, as he is described as such on his initiation to freemasonry (Putney Lodge), in 1902 (Ancestry). In fact, records at TNA show that he joined the police force in 1894 (MEPO 4/346/135):

George Frederick Sporne, warrant number 79777. Joined on 9 July 1894, and left on 19 April 1921. Last posted to CO (C4) Division as a PS.

His uncle Henry Sporne had worked as a ‘Stationer attached to the justice system’ and was found guilty of embezzlement in 1882, just over ten years before George joined the police.

By the time of the 1911 census, George and Emmie are still living in London, having been married for eight years and having had no children. He has risen from the post of Clerk to become a Detective in the Metropolitan Police. He resigned ten years later, having reached the rank of Serjeant First Class and was entitled to a healthy pension (Ancestry):

Perhaps his work was mainly behind a desk, as in the 1939 Register, having returned to Norfolk (Sheringham), he is described as ‘Police Officer Criminal Record Office New Scotland Yard, Retired’. He died in Sheringham in 1954.

His brother Alfred Charles Sporne was born in 1876 in Fincham, Norfolk. By the time of the 1891 census, he is living with his mother and brother in Wormegay, next door to the National School where his mother’s first husband was schoolmaster for many years. He is described as ‘monitor at school’. It seems that he spent his whole career as a school master. In the 1901 census he is single, aged 25, living at College Place, St Pancras/Camden Town, described as Certificated teacher. College Place was just a block away from boys, girls and infants schools on Camden Street – perhaps that is where he was working. Ten years later, he is still a bachelor, now working for London County Council as an Assistant Schoolmaster and living at 60 Paddington Street, London; once again, his address is a block or two away from a school complex behind St Marylebone Workhouse.

He stayed in Paddington until at least the mid-1920s according to city directories and phone books. By the 1939 Register, he has retired and is living – still single, now aged 63 – at 6 Upper Park Road, Hampstead. His occupation is given as ‘Schoolmaster Retired’. He died on 19 January 1965 at 11 Lyndhurst Gardens, London NW3. This is now the site of a Marie Curie hospice; Ordance Survey maps of the time show that there was a hospital there. His home address is shown as Flat B, 4 Upper Park Road, Hampstead. Probate on his estate of £1694 was granted to William David Sanders, Journalist. I don’t know how the two were connected, unless it was through education. There is a 2010 obituary for a David Sanders which could refer to the same man.

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