Victor William Sperring was born in the spring of 1897, in Lympsham, Somerset. One of nine children, his parents were James and Catherine Sperring. James was a farmer, 22 years older than his wife and, when he died in 1904, she was left to bring up the family alone. She remarried, to dairy farmer Frederick Butler, continuing the farming life.
Frederick died in 1914, and with her older children now in their 20s, Catherine’s sons took up the reins to keep the farm going. War was on the horizon now, and tragedy was never going to be far from the Sperring household.
Of the five brothers, at least two – Victor and his older brother, Hubert – stepped up to serve their King and Country. Hubert joined the Gloucestershire Regiment, rising to the rank of Lance Corporal in the 1st/6th Battalion. He was caught up at the Battle of the Somme, and was recorded as missing, presumed killed, on 21st July 1916. He was just 23 years of age, and is one of the tens of thousands of names commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial in Northern France.
Victor also joined the Gloucestershire Regiment, but his story is less clear. Certainly by 1918 he was attached to one of the regiment’s depots, possibly on home soil. He was admitted to the 2nd Southern General Hospital in the autumn of 1918, and this is where he passed away on 16th November. He was just 21 years of age.
Victor William Sperring was brought back to Lympsham for burial. He was laid to rest in the family plot in St Christopher’s Churchyard.
It seems likely that illness is what took Victor’s life. Just a month later, his sister, Annie, also passed away: she was interred next to her brother.
Catherine’s grief must have been indescribable, having lost a husband and three children in a matter of years. She continued on, however, and, by the time of the 1939 England and Wales Register, she was living with her son Roland, supporting him with his farm. She died in October 1941, at the age of 77: she was buried with her family in St Christopher’s.
Death and Service 