It’s back to the Spilletts this week.
I remember a talking heads video that my sister Janet made of my Father, Bill Carver. He was talking about his childhood. I remember him talking about his two uncles who ran a bicycle shop in the High Street, Oxted, the village where my father was born.
Old Oxted circa 1912 from a 25inches to the mile OS map (reproduced with kind permission from the National Libraries of Scotland)
My Great Grandfather, Henry George Spillett, had moved his family and second wife Sarah, to the village of Oxted at the end of the nineteenth century. By 1916 they were not only well settled but occupied in what Henry Spillett new well. Running a pub and painting carriages. Henry had taken over the Wheatsheaf, a pub at the bottom of High Street, Oxted. To be fair, it should be called Old Oxted to differentiate it from New Oxted. The latter has its name on Ordnance Survey maps at this time but Old Oxted remained firmly as Oxted on the OS sheet that I am copying here. The Wheatsheaf remained in the Spillett family for many years.
Next door to the pub was a shop that by 1916 was not only in the hands of the Spilletts but was being run by my two Great Uncles, Henry Matthew and Frank. The sold, repaired, and serviced bicycles.
Here was your local Raleigh agent, in Oxted. Advertisement in the Westerham Herald 1916 (from the National Newspaper Archives)
My Great Uncle Henry was born in Bersted, a village adjacent to Bognor, on 18th March 1893. Two years later, his mother, Ada Spillett, died of cancer. Shortly after, Henry’s father married Sarah, and then the family left Sussex and moved across the border to Surrey where they settled and created a significant dynasty in the Oxted area. Members of my extended family still live in the Oxted surrounds.
Henry was eight years old at the time of the 1901 Census return and a scholar. My guess is that he attended the village school in Beadles Lane, Oxted, which you can see at the bottom of the map above. This was the school that all the young Spilletts went to and which also the young Carvers attended in later years. However, at the time of the 1911 Census, Henry who would have been 18 years old, was not recorded at home. My searches for that year are fruitless and I have no idea where he was living or staying. However, given that by 1916 he was running a business with his brother Frank next door to the Wheatsheaf, I don’t think he was very far from Oxted. He was just missed off the count for some reason.
Running a Bicycle shop makes a lot of sense. It is the natural progression to the Fathers trade as a Carriage Builder and Painter. By the time of the First World War, motor cars and trains had taken over as the main form of transport. Horses were still in popular use but not required for general transport. Bicycles were becoming very popular. This era was also the birth of flying and airplanes.
Henry served in the First World War with the Royal Flying Corps. He was posted to France and served there with the RFC for eighteen months as a General Fitter. My guess is that if he was Bicycle repairer and fitter then he would have been the perfect recruit for putting aircraft together at this stage of their development in the first part of the twentieth century.
He did try to delay his enlistment by applying to the County Tribunal that was responsible for exemptions. There is no record of what his appeal was about but he was given one week’s exemption. The Tribunal was set up in each County after conscription was introduced. All Conscientious Objection cases were heard there. Many essential employers, such as the Railways, supported their staff for exemption because they were regarded as essential. So, also were Coal Miners and other providers to support the conflict during the First World War. Perhaps Henry thought he was eligible for exemption as Bicycle Agent.
Record of service from the RAF (from Forces War Records)
Henry enlisted on 15 May 1916 and joined the Royal Flying Corps. This was an arm of the British Army until it merged with the Naval Flying Service to form the Royal Air Force. During his time as a Fitter he worked his way up the ranks to an Air Mechanic Class 1. Henry was not seeing action as such but he was an essential engineer making sure the aircraft were fit to fly and that the reconnaissance and weapon machinery were functioning properly.
I am interested in his career with the RAF also because I have been researching my Wife’s Grandfather’s history with the RFC. He served at Blandford in Dorset as an Electrical Engineer at the same time that Henry was in France.
Not long after the war, Henry met Rosina Payne. They were married in April 1920 in the Church of St Gabriel in Pimlico, London. The Registration of the marriage gives lots of information. For example, Henry is living in the Wheatsheaf, Oxted. This tells me that he was not actually living in the Bike shop but with his parents. Although that is contradicted by the Electoral Register for 1919 which states that Henry and Frank are living in High Street while their brother George is living in the Wheatsheaf. We can be assured that the Spilletts are well established in the High Street whether at the Wheatsheaf or the Bike Shop !
Rosina is listed as living at 8, Sutherland Street, Pimlico. Her Father is a Master Butcher. Looking at No 8 on Google Street View, I see a beautiful four storey town house and I am wondering if Rosina actually lived there with her family or whether she was working and living there. One of the witnesses is Henry’s Step Mother, Sarah Spillett.
Rosina was born in 1892 and her Father was described as a Coffee Roaster, a totally different trade to which he professed to belong to when Rosina was married. The Payne family were living in East London in Cannon Street Road. This is close to Cable Street which was the centre of Blackshirt marches and riots in the 1930’s.
Henry and Rosina settled in Oxted where they lived for the rest of their lives. In the 1939 Register, Henry and Rosina (and Eileen, but she has been redacted because at the time that this Register was published online, she may still have been alive) are living at ‘The Bike Shop’ in High Street, Oxted. Henry is decribed as Cycle Dealer,Repairer and Coach Painter. Both Henry and Rosina are also ARP Wardens, or in the case of Rosina an ARP Maid ! ARP stands for Air Raid Precautions. The Wardens were responsible for ensuring that blackout regulations were maintained in the street, village or town. This prevented the enemy from navigating at night.
They had a daughter, Eileen in 1922 and I have found a record of her working as a Sorting Clerk and Telegraphist in the sorting office at Redhill in Surrey during the Second World War.
Eileen married Sydney Turner in 1944, the same year that Henry died at the Godstone Cottage Hospital.
Henry left a good estate for the benefit of Rosina and their daughter.
Rosina lived on until 1981 and died at home in High Street, Oxted.
My Great Uncle was the sort of Uncle that I would love to have known. He lived all of his life in a quiet village in the Surrey hinterland of the London suburbs. He provided an essential service to the war effort during the First World War by serving in the RFC/RAF as an aircraft fitter and then spent the rest of his life running the Bike Shop in High Street, Oxted. He was still doing this when he died in 1944.
In future posts I shall explore the lives of his brothers, Frank and George.