Frederick Spurrell

The Reverend Frederick Spurrell was the second son, and seventh of eight children, of Charles Spurrell and Hannah Shears (daughter of James Shears, of James Shears and Sons). He was descended from the Spurrell family of Thurgarton, Norfolk.

He was born on 2 August 1824 at 23, Park Street, Southwark. At the time, his father worked for Barclay and Perkins Ltd., who then owned the Anchor Brewery, Southwark; later the family moved to Anchor Terrace, Southwark Bridge Road, when it was built in the mid-1830s.

After completing his studies at King's College London where he became an Associate of King's College (A.K.C.), he went up to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, obtaining a B.A. in 1847 (M.A. 1850). He was ordained deacon in 1847 by the Bishop of Chichester and priest the following year, when began his work as Curate of Newhaven, Sussex. In 1848 he was among a small party that called on Louis-Philippe of France at Newhaven after the latter had escaped the 1848 revolutions in France.

In 1849 he was the first person to be appointed Chaplain to the British Residents at Stockholm, Sweden. On his return to England, he served as Curate of Barcombe, Sussex, from 1850 to 1853.

From 1853 to 1898 Frederick Spurrell was Rector of Faulkbourne, Essex, where he is remembered for restoring the church in the 1880s. He was also interested in archaeology and published a number of papers on the subject; he was a member of the Royal Archaeological Society (on whose Council he served) and the Essex Archaeological Society, and an honorary member of the Sussex Archaeological Society.

On 16 February 1854, at Newhaven church, he married his cousin Frances (1827–1892), youngest daughter of John Gray (of the Gray and Dacre Brewery, West Ham) and Lydia Shears. They had three daughters and one son, Charles Henry, who followed his father into the Church, serving for many years as the Organising Secretary for the National Society for Promoting Religious Education before becoming Rector of Meesden, Hertfordshire, from 1911-1923.

He was the uncle of the archaeologist and egyptologist Flaxman Charles John Spurrell and a cousin of Rev. Augustus Shears and Rev. Ernest Henry Shears.

Frederick died at Johnstone Street, Bath, on 23 February 1902 and is buried with his wife at Faulkbourne.