Notable Members of
the Sprye Family
Within my own Durnford/Isaacson
relations, there are several worldwide sources where information is shared,
particularly relevant to our Durnford family.
From extensive research, we have an understanding of the lives of our
forebears, and sometimes, it answers some questions as to one's own
traits. It is with that in mind, that
this principle is now also applied to the Spry/Kingdom relations.
There have been some very
significant members of the Sprye family over time, particularly in relation to
the Armed Forces, but some were also pioneers in other fields.
In fact, centuries ago, the
"social pecking order" seemed to follow: Royalty, Members of Court, Religion,
Merchants, Sheriffs, Professionals - Doctors, Solicitors, Inventors,
Mathematicians, Explorers, Military.
The Spry family have been noted
Members of Parliament, Governors, Clergy, Merchants, Sheriffs, Solicitors,
Doctors, pharmacists, shipbuilders and served in all branches of the Military.
Wikipedia provided a following
list of notable members of the Spry Family.
The family relationship is included, ie
2*10 indicates 2nd cousin by 10 generations.
But added to that list, are a
great many more family members, all with some interesting stories to tell. By the 19th century, many served the East
India Company, in India, and many became surgeons.
The Spry family can be found all
over the world.
The first of the name of Spry, to
settle in Australia, was Mary Spry, from Dover, unfortunately she came in
chains in on the America. Mary was born
in 1799, and she was tried at the Summer Assizes in 1830 for receiving stolen
goods, sentence 14 years. She arrived in
Tasmania in 1831.
But Mary did not have a decent
life. In May 1836, an inquest was called into the death of a young 20 month old
child, called William Spry. His mother
was Mary Spry. She gave birth at the
Female House of Corrections, and was allowed to wet nurse him for 12 months,
then dry nurse for 14 weeks. She was
then removed, and the child moved. She
was allowed to see him once a month. She
was employed as an assistant in the House of Corrections, and told her child
was unwell due to teething.
She obtained
her ticket of leave about 4 months prior and left the House, thinking that her
child was being looked after. She
finally took him, and he was emaciated, she considered from starvation.
Jane Dutton was a nurse at the House and she
had to take care of him. He had bread
and milk sago and wine, but he would not eat.
Eventually he died.
The inquest found he died of
natural causes, but caused an uproar in the community, for its treatment of
those in its care. Poor William, his
birth was not registered, and his death denotes - child of a convict.
Nothing more is available for
Mary Sprye, she died in the Colonial Hospital in 1849.
Cornwall
Chronicle
(Launceston, Tas. : 1835 - 1880), Saturday 26 May 1838, page 86
INDESCRIBABLE SPECTACLE! ! ! Another instance of the horrible system
adopted at the abode or wretchedness and death, the female factory, is now
before the public. A miserable woman named Mary Spry, having obtained a ticket
of leave, obtained an order to take her child, 20 months old, from the factory.
It was in 'THE NURSERY WARD' . She found it such as is impossible to describe '.
It was alive, but it was literally a skeleton. It may be seen, if it lives, on
application at the residence of the proprietor or this journal, in Macquarie
Street. Its bones all but protrude through its skin; flesh there is none. It
is, we repeat, so dreadful a spectacle, that it excites horror to look at it.
We took the liberty to send the wretched woman with this fresh L'Amatomie
Vivante specimen of factory '
nursing,' to Sir John Franklin last night, but
his Excellency was engaged, and could not see her. We regret this, because we
had hoped, from the high reputation for humanity of Sir John Franklin, that no
engagement would have prevented his personal inspection or the utmost extreme
or human suffering while life was not yet quite extinct. The unhappy mother was
more successful elsewhere. Several ladies saw her, but the effect was like the
object itself, indescribable. What else can be expected, when so many infants
are cooped up in that dreadful abode, where now, and for months past, yet worse,
and for months to come, the cheering rays of the sun never reach the wet and
damp yards of so infernal a prison !
The sun's meridian altitude reaches not the summit or the mountain in
the morass at the foot of which it is situated, redolent of disease and death !
Pernicious as must be such an atmosphere. yet such as it is. it cannot be
breathed out or the wretched prison rooms, in which so many infants are crowded
together locked up during the nights and when the doors are opened in the
morning, so dreadful is the effluvia which rushes forth, that the goalors
themselves flee from it! ! What but death or worse than death, an emaciated
existence during the whole period which that life may be continued, can result
from the weaning a number or children several by one woman, the food given to
all of them at one time, (for it cannot otherwise be provided in a warm
condition) so that their little heads are stretched forth towards the feeding
spoon which is offered to them in succession'
If they are asleep at 'the
feeding time' they must be awakened, and if so, what parent is there who knows
not the unwillingness with which an infant so disturbed in its repose -
wretched indeed must it be- will receive food especially when to obtain it at
all, must be an effort of which even the healthiest infant either unwilling or
incapable, they must either be awakened to receive their passing share of food,
or they must remain without food until the next feeding time, some hours
onwards. We have not room in our present number for the further expression of
the horror and indignation which we feel at the existence of a system of
barbarity, such as this, being still permitted to disgrace the British name
and character. If it was a solitary instance of the apathy of the authorities,
it might be palliated, but when the exhibition or these living-in-death,
infants is of repeated occurrence, what is to be said said?
When we lately attempted feebly to describe the horrors of the dreadful
abode of wretchedness, we forebore much, because we hoped, we believed, and we
understood, that immediate steps would be taken to put an end to the frightful
system. Not so, it continues with increased severity, vires acquirit rundo. We
abstained from the mention of the name of the female ; can it be possible that
she can even witness such spectacles, much less ministrate to these without
rushing daily to Govcrnment-house and imploring either redress, or that she may
be relieved from so hateful an office. We say we abstained on the recent
occasion from the mention of Mrs. Hutchinson's name. We now, howevcr are
compelled to state, that we shall show, that perhaps owing to her long
acquaintance with misery, rather than to any natural disposition she has
become- we still forbear further mention than to express our hope that another
female may be appointed to so arduous a charge as that of watching over, for
such is a chief duty where the heart dictates, the sustaining life in helpless
innocent infants . -
Murray's Review
Some of those
Notable members
Sir Henry Spry (died 1627) was a Captain of Foot in
the Low Countries. 2*10
Arthur Spry (1612–1685), MP for St
Mawes 1*9
William Spry (born ca. 1663), barrister of Middle Temple 2*8
Sir Richard Spry (1715–1775), Rear
Admiral of the Red,
as Rear-Admiral of the White conferred knighthood, 24 June 1773 on board HMS
Barfleur
by King George
III Promoted Rear Admiral of the Red on 31 March
1775 6*6
Lieutenant-General Horatio Spry (1730–1811), last
resident of Manor House of Blisland, built 16th century. He served in the Royal Marines,
His daughter Rebecca married Rear Admiral Jonathan Faulknor of the Faulknor family of naval officers. 4*6
Lieutenant-General
William Spry
(1734–1802) Commander of the Royal
Engineers in Nova Scotia 4*6
Major-General William Frederick Spry
(1770–1814) 5*5
Sir Samuel
Thomas Spry
(1804–1868), MP for Bodmin, High
Sheriff of Cornwall,
1849 8*4
Thomas Spry, Admiral (died 1828) né Thomas Davy,
Esq; Captain in the Royal Navy, and nephew of Sir Richard takes surname and
arms of Spry 13 April 1779 7*5
Captain Richard Samuel Sprye - of the British Army
of India 1800 - 1878 He advocated a new trading route between
Rangoon and China. 2*5
His son Courtenay William Hele Fowell Spry later
became a Magistrate in Queensland. 3*4
Brigadier Sir Charles Chambers
Fowell Spry CBE,
DSO (26 June 1910 – 28 May 1994) was an Australian soldier and public servant.
From 1950 to 1970 he was the second Director-General of Security, the head of
the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). 5*2
There is a
memorial at St Peter's Church Titchford, Hampshire, acknowledging Lieut General
Horatio Spry, along with Rear Admiral Jonathan Falkner, his wife Rebecca, and
daughter Caroline, and Lieutenant General William Spry, Royal Engineers. Manor House
Sir Henry Spry was born in 1570 and died in
1627. He was the son of Edward Spry and
Alice Benny. His will is housed at the
National Archives. At the time of his
death his address was Saint Mary Savoy Middlesex. Name known as Sprie or Spry. He was named as investors in the Second
Charter for Virginia in 1609
Details of billeting of Sir Alexander Brett and Sir
Henry Spry's regiments in the Isle of Wight prior to departure for Ile de Rhe
The Second Virginia Charter, dated May 23,
1609, provided "a further Enlargement and Explanation of the said [first]
Grant, Privileges, and Liberties" which gave the London Company adventurers influence in
determining the policies of the company, extended the Company's rights to land
extending "up into the Land throughout from Sea to Sea", and allowed
English merchant companies and individuals to
invest in the colonization effort. The charter includes a detailed
list of the names of some 650 noblemen, gentlemen, officials, companies, and
individuals who subscribed as investors.
Arthur Spry was the MP for Plymouth
bap. 4 Feb. 1612, 3rd but 1st surv.
s. of George Spry of Bodmin and Place, Cornw. by Anne, da. of Arthur Ayshford
of Wonwell, Devon. m. (1) 24 Apr. 1649, Mary (d. 4 May 1656),
da. and h. of Richard Gayer, merchant, of Plymouth, 3da.; (2) Lucy, da. of
George Hele of Bennets, Cornw., wid. of Henry Nance of Nance, Cornw., 3s. 1da. suc.
fa. 1658
Spry was involved in a double return for St. Mawes at the general election of 1660 and seated on the merits of the return. Marked as a friend by Lord Wharton, he was moderately active in the Convention, in which he was named to 22 committees, of which the most important was for the navigation bill. On 18 June he produced information charging the radical clergyman Hugh Peter with advising Cromwell to ‘dispose of’ Charles I. He was among those instructed to prepare orders for the disbandment commission, on which he later served, and to consider the Dunkirk establishment bill. After the recess he was given special responsibility with Thomas Clarges for starting the public debt. He was rewarded for his services with the grant of the toll on tin in four Cornish manors.
After another double return in 1661 Spry became an active Member of the Cavalier Parliament. He was appointed to 276 committees, including the committee of elections and privileges in seven sessions, acted as teller in ten divisions, and made seven recorded speeches. His first committee of political importance was for the prevention of sectarian meetings, to which he was added on 14 May 1663. He helped to manage a conference on 13 May 1664 on the bill to make Falmouth a parish. On 12 Dec. 1666 he brought in an estimate of the yield of a stamp tax, which was accepted.
Spry’s attitude to the fall of Clarendon is not known, though he was among those ordered to bring in a public accounts bill and to examine the accounts of the merchants trading with France in the next session. Together with Sir Charles Harbord and (Sir) Humphrey Winch he reported on their inspection of the records relating to the poll-tax and the eleven months’ assessment.
On 2 Dec. 1669 he carried a motion for an imposition on wine and brandy and the abolition of licences, so that ‘it will reach all, as well what the merchant spends on his own house as the gentleman’, and he acted as teller against the proposal to prohibit the import of brandy.
He took the chair for another local bill to enable a quay to be erected at Falmouth, and for a similar bill for Dover. He supported duties on tobacco and on canvas, and favoured a land-tax at a shilling in the pound, but opposed any imposition on mines. He was named to both committees for prolonging the Conventicles Act. In March 1671 he twice strove to expedite consideration of the bill to transfer the Cornish assizes from Launceston to Bodmin. As one of the Members who had usually voted for supply, he was on both lists of the court party at this time. But he was not successful in his application for the country excise farm, despite his account of his family’s losses, and his claim that he had himself ‘suffered in his estate by attending his Majesty’s service in Parliament above ten years’.
As some compensation he was made a prize commissioner in the third Dutch war.
Under Danby steps were taken to attach Spry more firmly to the government interest by the grant of an excise pension of £200. He defended the lord treasurer in April 1675, demanding proofs of each article of impeachment, and remarking that ‘we make use of public fame to accuse; I hope we may justly use [it] to clear this lord’. He attended a conference on the dispute over the jurisdiction of the Lords on 17 May, and received the government whip from Secretary Coventry for the autumn session, when he was named to the committees for appropriating the customs to the use of the navy, recalling British subjects from the French service, and preventing the growth of Popery.
Sir Richard Wiseman was prepared to ‘undertake an account’ of him, he was listed among the government speakers, and his name appeared on the working lists among those ‘to be remembered’. Hence in 1676 he was granted a farm of the crown rights of pre-emption and coinage of tin, though it was carefully noted in the treasury books that he had outbid his rivals. Shaftesbury classed him as ‘thrice vile’ in 1677, when he acted as teller for the Court on supply, and the author of A Seasonable Argument described him as ‘a commissioner of prizes, [with] £400 per annum pension’, and alleged that he had ‘raised his estate from £100 per annum to £800 by being a Member’.
He was among those appointed to summarize the alliances on 30 Apr. 1678. Although listed as a government speaker, his principal activity at this time was in the lobbies. He acted as teller for the bill to enable the King to grant leases of duchy of Cornwall lands, against criticism of the lord chancellor’s speech of 23 May, for accepting the naval estimates, against requiring recusancy commissioners to be nominated by the Commons, and against re-committing the bill for reforming the hearth-tax. Fines to the amount of £290 due on the renewal of his own duchy leases were remitted in view of ‘his faithful service and sufferings’, and his name appeared on both lists of the court party.
After the Popish Plot he was added to the committee to examine Coleman’s papers on 14 Nov., and appointed to those ordered to bring in bills against the danger from Popery, to prepare instructions for disbanding the new-raised forces, and to consider the bill to facilitate conviction for recusancy.
Though Spry was ‘a very rich man and [a] sure friend to the King’, St. Mawes had now passed under the control of (Sir) Joseph Tredenham. He himself had ‘no interest in any corporation’, even apart from being blacklisted in the ‘unanimous club’, and he did not stand again. He died on 17 Sept. 1685 and was buried at St. Anthony in Roseland, the only member of his family to sit in Parliament.
William Spry, born 1653 the son of Arthur Spry and
Lucy Hele was a barrister at Inner Temple.
He married Dorothy Hawkins and Hester Derbyshire.
Admiral Sir Richard Spry (1715– 25 November 1775)
was a Royal Navy officer who served as Commander-in-Chief, North
American Station. He was the brother of William Spry the
Barrister.
After an education at Truro Grammar School Spry joined the Royal Navy as a
volunteer in 1733. Following the sinking of his ship by the Spanish Navy he was
taken prisoner in 1745 but released two months later. He took part in the siege
of Pondicherry in India in 1750.
In 1755 he became senior officer at Halifax and in
1758 took part in the successful Siege of Louisbourg. He was given command of HMS Orford in 1760.
In 1762 he was appointed Commander-in-Chief, North
American Station. In 1766
he was promoted to the rank of Commodore and
appointed Commander-in-Chief,
Mediterranean Station.
Spry
returned to England in 1769. In 1770 he was promoted to rear
admiral and went
on to be Port
Admiral at Plymouth
in 1771. He was knighted at Portsmouth on 24 June 1773 and retired to Place
House in St
Anthony in Roseland,
Cornwall, where he died in 1775.
Memorial in St Anthony's church, St Anthony in
Roseland
Someone relative to Australia served under Sir
Richard Spry, his name was William Bligh.
He was the son of a customs officer. His mother died
when William was 14, but it was very early when his parents had decided on as
Naval career for their young son. He first appears on Navy lists at the age of
9, when, at the behest of Hon. Keith Stewart, said to have been a close
relative of his mother, he was entered as a personal servant to an officer on a
man-of-war. This was a common practice, even at that age, in order to give
young boys who were destined for a Naval career the necessary 6 years
qualification as early as possible. He was 'paid off' on 21 Feb 1763.
By the age of 15, he was not only well-versed in
science and mathematics, but had developed fine talents as a writer and illustrator.
He does not appear in the records again until 27 Jul 1770, when his name was
entered on the paysheets of the H.M.S. Hunter, a small sloop mounting
only 10 guns, rated as an AB and master's mate. This was soon after the death
of his mother and the remarriage of his father, and these event may have had
something to do with Bligh's re-entry into the Navy. It is believed that, in
accord with normal custom, he was carried as an 'additional midshipman', that
is, a young man deserving of officer's training, but carried in addition to the
two official midshipman's positions on a naval vessel. They were officially
recognized as junior officers in training, both by respect of crew and duties
assigned. They also became official midshipmen as soon as vacancies occurred.
On 4 Feb 1771, he was discharged by order of Rear
Admiral Sir Richard Spry, and re-entered the next day on the same ship as a
midshipman. He remained on that ship until 22 Feb 1771, when he was reassigned
to H.M.S. Crescent whereon he served until 23 Aug 1774. He then served
on H.M.S. Ranger.
It was on 20 Mar 1776 that he received what was to
be his first opportunity to visit the South Seas, when he was appointed Master
on board H.M.S. Resolution, commanded by Captain James Cook, just prior
to Cook's third voyage. At 22, to be appointed sailing master on a major
research vessel was a great tribute to his skill and connections. There is
evidence that he was in constant attendance on this ship, and in consultation
with Cook and his officers constantly. On 1 May 1776, he passed his examination
for Lieutenant.
He joined the Royal Engineers and gradually rose through the ranks. During the French and Indian War, Spry participated in the Siege of Louisbourg (1758) and served in Quebec after its surrender the following year.
During the American Revolution, Spry was the commander of the Royal Engineers and in Halifax, Nova Scotia, strengthened Citadel Hill, built Fort Massey and Fort Needham, and oversaw the building of the Northwest Arm Battery at Point Pleasant.
In 1783 he was made a Colonel in the Royal Engineers, rising to the rank of Major-General (1793) and later Lieutenant-General (1799).
In about 1770, while a captain, William Spry purchased some land in Nova Scotia and established the settlement known as Spryfield with the aid of stationed soldiers from the nearby Halifax garrison. He sold his property at the end of the American Revolution (1783) and returned to England.
Spry died in 1802 and is supposedly buried under the clock tower of St Margaret's, Westminster.
His brother was Lieutenant-General Horatio Spry (1730–1811) and his son was Major-General William Frederick Spry (1770–1814).
Commander
Spry in 1755 was at Halifax on the ship Fougeux. a Man of War ship.
Fougueux 64 (1747) – ex-French Le
Fougueux captured
14 October 1747 at Second Battle of Cape Finisterre, broken up 1759 The battle took
place in the eastern Atlantic, roughly halfway between Ireland and Cape Finisterre in northwest Spain.
It was a decisive British victory that has been described as "the most
brilliant naval action of the war
1754-1828.
He was the elder of two sons of Thomas Davy and his wife Mary Spry, the sister
of Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Spry.
Davy was commissioned lieutenant on 16 May 1769, promoted commander on
29 July 1772, and appointed to the sloop Diligence 12 which went out to the
Jamaican station in October, remaining there for the next five years.
He was posted captain on 5 May 1778, and during September commanded the
Europe 64 under the orders of Commodore John Evans in the expedition to capture
the French islands of Miquelon and St. Pierre off Newfoundland. He then
exchanged with Captain Richard King of the Pallas 36 and returned to England in
November.
On 13 April 1779 a royal licence allowed Davy to assume the name of Spry
as inheritor to his uncle, Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Spry of Place House, St.
Anthony in Roseland, Cornwall, that officer having died on 1 December 1775.
Spry was present under the orders of Captain Sir James Wallace in the
attack on a French force in Cancale Bay on 13 May 1779, and
having sailed for Jamaica in June he captured the Spanish vessel Diana 22 on 11
November, after which the Pallas was ordered home. He later commanded the
Ulysses 44 on the Jamaican station in the latter part of 1782, returning home
at the end of the war having made a number of captures including two Spanish
men of war.
Spry was not employed thereafter but retired to Place House in Cornwall
where he served as a county magistrate. In due course he was promoted
rear-admiral on 1 June 1795, vice-admiral on 14 February 1799, admiral on 9
November 1805. He died at Tregoles near Truro in Cornwall on 27 November 1828
and was buried in St. Anthony in Roseland Church.
On 9 February 1796 he married the heiress Anna
Maria Thomas of Tregolls, Cornwall. His elder son, Samuel Thomas Spry, sat in
the House of Commons as M.P. for Bodmin in the Whig and then Tory interest, and
he had issue another son and two daughters
Spry was a J.P., Deputy Lieutenant and Deputy Warden of the Stannaries, and was High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1849.
Place House – the ancestral home
Spry inherited from his uncle, Admiral Sir Richard Spry – By Chris J Dixon, CC
BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9132255
The Davy Family of Cornwall, have
some very strong historical links. The
lineage was called Davie, Davy, Davye.
It can be traced through the Strode, Cromwell, Ughtred, Seymour,
Courtenay, Yonge and Reynell families.
Of interest is that Lady
Elizabeth Seymour, who married Anthony Ughtred, Gregory Cromwell, and John
Paulet, was the sister of Lady Jane Seymour, another of King Henry VIII's wives.
This
family also were early settlers in America
Sir John Davie, 5th Baronet (died
1727) (first cousin). He was the eldest son of Humphry Davie (born 1625) (a
younger son of the 1st Baronet), a merchant of London, by his wife Mary White.
Humphrey Davie was a puritan, and a member of the Drapers’ and Merchant
Adventurers’ Companies who went to America in 1662. Sir John married a certain
Elizabeth (died 1713), by whom he had children 2 daughters and 6 sons,
including his eldest son and heir Sir John Davie, 6th Baronet (1700–1737).
Mural monument to John Davie
(died 1611), St Mary Arches Church, Exeter.
Lieutenant-General William Spry (1734–1802) was born in Titchfield, Hampshire, in 1734, the son of George Spry
and Elizabeth Short
During the American Revolution, Spry was the commander of the Royal Engineers and in Halifax, Nova Scotia, strengthened Citadel Hill, built Fort Massey and Fort Needham, and oversaw the building of the Northwest Arm Battery at Point Pleasant.
In 1783 he was made a Colonel in the Royal Engineers, rising to the rank of Major-General (1793) and later Lieutenant-General (1799).
In about 1770, while a captain, William Spry purchased some land in Nova Scotia and established the settlement known as Spryfield with the aid of stationed soldiers from the nearby Halifax garrison. He sold his property at the end of the American Revolution (1783) and returned to England.
Spry died in 1802 and is supposedly buried under the clock tower of St Margaret's, Westminster.
William was descended from the Spry family of Roseland, Cornwall, which bred many army and navy officers. His brother was Lieutenant-General Horatio Spry (1730–1811) and his son was Major-General William Frederick Spry (1770–1814)
Lieutenant General Horatio Spry
married Rebecca Rickman. Their daughter Rebecca married Rear Admiral Jonathan
Faulkner.
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