Name
Anthony George Spurr
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
09/05/1915
26
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
2924
London Regiment *1
13th (County of London) Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
PLOEGSTEERT MEMORIAL
Panel 10.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Watford Borough Roll of Honour, St Michael and All Angels Church Memorial, Watford, Watford Printers Memorial, Watford, Hitchin Town Memorial, St Mary’s Church Roll of Honour (Book), Hitchin, Stained Glass Window, Hitchin Boys Grammar School
Pre War
Anthony was born 1889 in Hitchin, and baptised 20 November 1889 at St Mary’s, Hitchin. He was the eldest son of George E. and Ethel Mary Spurr (nee Cropper) of ‘Dowlands’, Wymondley Road, Hitchin. His parents married 1 January 1885 at St Andrew’s, Nottingham. George died 13 June 1933 in Marylebone, London, aged 75; Ethel died 5 April 1934 in Hitchin aged 74.
On the 1891 Census, aged 1 he lived in Hitchin, with his parents and four siblings. On the 1901 Census, aged 11 he still lived in Hitchin, with his parents and seven siblings.
He was certainly attending the Hitchin Grammar School by the Spring of 1904 and was in the 6th Form, he left in the Winter Term of 1905. “All who knew him remembered his alert kindly disposition and strong literary bent and he was a frequent contributor to the Hitchin Grammar School Chronicle.”
On the 1911 Census, a journalist aged 21, he lived alone in Watford.
He was a journalist with the Watford Observer.
Wartime Service
He had enlisted in Watford in a Territorial unit by September 1914 and was given the Regimental Number 2924 in the 13th (County of London) Battalion (Princess Louise's Kensington Battalion), going to France on the 11th February 1915. That Battalion had arrived at Le Havre on the 4th November 1914 and, shortly after, joined the 25th Brigade, 8th Division, IV Corps, First Army.
After a bayonet charge on the day of the disastrous attack on Aubers Ridge he was shot by the enemy and killed instantly. It was Sunday the 9th May 1915, the weather calm, bright and sunny. A bombardment of the German trenches began at 5.00am and the infantry attacked at 5.30am. The Kensingtons were on the extreme left in the attack on the German trenches around Rougebanc north west of Fromelles. Unfortunately, the British bombardment was totally inadequate to cut the wire, as they were using shrapnel instead of high explosive and the number of shells available was hopelessly insufficient.
A description written in the style of the times reflects what happened: “It was a day of glorious deeds but unavailing sacrifice. Near Rougebanc the 13th (Kensington) Battalion of the London Regiment succeeded in reaching its objective on the extreme left with a dash which shed fresh lustre on Territorial arms, carrying not only the first, but also the second and third German trenches and then digging themselves in. You have done splendidly" said the Brigadier in a message to the captured position promising to send reinforcements. Alas! these never reached them; the supports were seen to advance and then to fade away; while the Battalions which should have connected up with the Kensingtons in the first case never got through. Losses that day were 145 Officers and nearly 10,000 men.
He was entitled to the Victory, British War and 1914-15 Star medals, his qualifying date being 11 February 1915, and was killed in action.
Additional Information
Unfortunately, Anthony’s Service Record appears to be one that did not survive the World War Two bombing. There are articles about Anthony in the West Herts and Watford Observer dated 27 March 1915, 22 May 1915, 8 January 1916 and 9 September 1916; also in the Watford Illustrated dated 22 May 1915. Anthony and his younger brother, Douglas B. Spurr, were the first fatal casualties from the Hitchin Grammar School during the war.
*1 Believed more correctly, (County of London) Bn. London Regiment (Kensington).
Acknowledgments
Sue Carter (Research) and Watford Museum (ROH on line via www.ourwatfordhistory.org.uk)
