Details of John George Spry’s life remain tantalisingly out of reach. He was born in around 1874 in the Devon village of Woolfardisworthy, and was one of eight children to John and Ann Spry. John Sr was a general labourer who died in 1891. By this point the family were living at 14 Honestone Lane, Bideford, and John Jr was working as a stone mason.

John married Emily Langford. She was a blacksmith’s daughter from Taunton, Somerset, but the couple set up home in nearby Wellington, before moving to Twerton, Bath. The went on to have three children: Ivy, Ruby and Frederick. Interestingly, Ivy seems to have been taken in by Emily’s mother, Emma, while Ruby and Frederick remained with their parents.

The 1911 census found Emily, Ruby and Frederick living with John’s mother in Bideford. Ivy was in Wellington with Emma, but John is missing from the records.

When war broke out, John joined up. He enlisted in the Royal Engineers, and was assigned the rank of Sapper. Dates for his service – and where that service was carried out – are lost to time, but by the autumn of 1918, John was based in barracks in Fovant, Wiltshire.

By this time, Sapper Spry had fallen ill. Suffering from influenza and bronchial pneumonia, he was to succumb to the lung diseases, as so many other returning servicemen did. John passed away on 28th November 1918, aged 45 years of age.

John George Spry was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in Wellington Cemetery, not far from where his widow had relocated.

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What became of the Spry family after John’s death is unclear. Emily cannot be tracked down in the 1921 census, nor can her middle child, Ruby.

Ivy was boarding at 55 Harrow Road, Paddington, Middlesex, where she was working as a Lieutenant in the Salvation Army. Frederick, meanwhile, had found work as a steersman on a steamroller, and, according to the census, was living with his maternal uncle, Charles, in Bideford.

The 1939 Register picks up Emily once more, living in a small end-of-terrace cottage on the outskirts of Wellington. Now 70 years of age, she was noted as being incapacitated, no doubt being tended to by Ruby, who was also living there, employed as a puttee machinist.

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