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Life and Times
(contributed by Nan Spedding)
Charles Spedding
Charles Spedding, the second son of the Rev. Francis Spedding and his wife Isabella Mansfield was born 16 November 1857 in Shifnal, Shropshire. His education is unknown and he left England for India in 1885, the year after his father died, when he was 28 years old. In 1891 he founded Spedding and Co., Civil Engineers and in the same year he became involved in the northern India Hunza-Nagar Expedition with the local rank of Captain. This involved a contract from the British Army to build a military road from Gilgit to Hunza and beyond for the defence of the Hindu Kush from the Hunza-Nagaris, a tribe who terrorized the locals by taking prisoners during raids and selling them as slaves. Under very difficult conditions Charles and his sappers built a mule track, protected by his personal army of Pathans. Queen Victoria subsequently awarded Charles the India Medal of 1854 with the Hunza clasp of 1891, a very rare medal. In 1896 his kinsman, the Rt. Hon. Sir Rowland George Allanson Allanson-Winn, later the 5th Lord Headley, joined Spedding and Co. as an assistant engineer when the company was constructing the Baramula-Srinagar Road through the mountains, 33 miles long and involving 167 coverts and bridges.
In 1897 Charles left India due to illness and met Bessy Phillips, his future wife, in a hospital in Paris where she nursed him and put up with his swearing in Hindustani. They retired to England and bought Cary Castle in St. Mary Church, Devon, where their only child Frank Spedding was born in 1901.
In 1902 Charles returned to India but in 1904 Spedding and Co. was wound down and he finally left India in 1905 with a huge company pension. When a relative casually mentioned taxes, Charles is said to have replied, "What is income tax?" Shortly afterwards, the family left for the Continent and the life of wealthy tax exiles, living in hotels on the French Riviera. He never recovered his health and used a small covered carriage and pony to get about. They eventually moved to the Channel Islands and lived at Holly Lodge, St. Saviour, Jersey and where he died 9 December 1925.
He was always known in the family as "the Famous Engineer" and his exploits in India were told in the book, "Where Three Empires Meet" by E.F. Knight, his first cousin, written in 1895
Brigadier Charles Francis Carlisle Spedding CBE
Frank Spedding, the only child of Charles Spedding and his wife Bessie Phillips, was born in Newton Abbot, Devon, 19th September 1901. He was raised on the Continent by his parents and a series of nannies, living the wealthy emigre lifestyle in French hotels. His earliest memory is of sitting on his mother's knee in a French doctor's office. A slug of brandy was poured down his throat and the doctor reached into his mouth to cut out his tonsils.
He was a brilliant man. He was educated at Wellington College, Berks., and passed into the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich in June 1920 with the highest marks ever recorded while using only his left hand, his right arm having been broken in a motorcycle accident. He was commissioned on 31 August 1922 into the Royal Artillery. The same year he eloped with his first cousin, Phyllis Carter whom he had known nearly all his life, their disapproving mothers being sisters. They had two children - Michael born in 1930 and Sarah Erif, born in 1942. Sarah was never well and died in 1953 aged 11, a great sorrow to her family.
Frank was a lecturer and instructor in ballistics at the Royal Military Academy. When war broke out, he worked on weapon development at the War Office and Ministry of Supply, was Secretary of the Ordnance Board and appointed Brigadier in 1943. Postwar, Frank was with the Control Commission in Berlin, contacting German rocket and atomic specialists and was Assistant Chief in the Reparations Division. He returned to the Army and was seconded to the Indian government as advisor on weapon development from 1950-52. He retired from the Army in 1953 and took on a diplomatic career. He was appointed Scientific Attache to H.M. Embassy, Bonn, Germany and later to Vienna from 1957-63 where he had great rapport with German and Austrian scientists as he spoke fluent German. He was honoured with a C.B.E. in 1961.
In his private life he was on the Council for Psychical Research from 1955-78. He and Phyllis were a warmly hospitable couple with dearly
loved homes in Wotton under Edge, Glos., and Bath, Somerset. After Phyllis passed away he lived with Michael and Nan in Feckenham, Worcs. He died 17th August 1979 while staying at Osborne House, the Senior Officers Rest Home, the former home of Queen Victoria on the Isle of Wight.
Related Family Pages
Parents:
Rev. Francis Spedding and Isabella Mansfield
Siblings of Charles:
James Mansfield Spedding
Frank Sayer Spedding
Henry Elphinstone Spedding
Marion Christina Spedding (married George Fennell Richardson)
Isabella Mansfield Spedding
Children:
Charles Francis Carlisle Spedding (married Phyllis Carter)
Featured Pages
Charles Spedding Letter
Mansfield Spedding Biographies
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Charles Spedding
photograph taken in India