Spicer Family
Thomas Spicer was a gardener. He and his wife Rebecca (nee Beeson, born at the Blue Cow, South Witham) lived in Woolsthorpe by Colsterworth before moving to Church St, Long Bennington in 1902, where Thomas worked as a groom/gardener for Mr & Mrs Younghusband at Priory House. Rebecca died in 1940. When Thomas died in 1944 (aged 84). They had 9 children:
- Naaman c1882
- Arthur c1885
- Sarah Alice (1887-1890)
- Walter c1889
- Herbert c1893
- Aubrey c1895
- Florence c1898
- Thomas c1900
- Alfred c1904
In 1910 Naaman married Ada Black in Lincoln, the following year they were living in Church St, Long Bennington, where he was a fish dealer. During the Great War he joined the RASC as a driver. They had 8 children, the oldest (also Naaman) was born 1911. Naaman (senior) died in Mansfield in 1955.
In 1901 Arthur was 16 and working as a carter. He lived in Long Bennington where he married May Elizabeth Asher in 1912.
1911 Walter was an assistant butcher in Long Bennington, living with the butcher John Edward Bell (aged 76, born Hough, partly blind and deaf) and his ‘feeble minded’ wife Margaret. Walter married Daisy Storrs in 1915. During the Great War he served in the RAF. He became a butcher in Potterhanworth, but in 1926 they emigrated to New Zealand with their 2 children. Walter died in New Zealand in 1967.
1911 Aubrey (age 16) was a baker, living with Alfred Allen (baker) and his wife Esther in Main St, Long Bennington. During the Great War Aubrey served with the RAMC in Salonica. He died in 1967.
Florence died aged 25 in 1922.
Thomas joined the Sherwood Foresters Young Soldier Battalion in Jul 1918.
In 1911 Herbert Spicer (18) was a baker living with the family of Thomas Watkin, baker & confectioner, at 37/39 Kirkgate Newark (now Charles coffee shop). He also worked as a baker for Mr Allen in Long Bennington. He married Eliza Ives of 9 Spittal Row, Newark in 1915. Three months later he joined the Worcestershire Regiment. After training at Borden, Hampshire he joined 2nd Battalion in France. In April 1918 he was wounded in the legs, hip and thigh and taken prisoner. He died of his wounds in the POW camp hospital in Munster on 9th September 1918 and was buried in Hamburg Cemetery. He was 26 and left a widow and one child. His name appears on the Long Bennington and Newark war memorials
