Edgar’s father is significant in that he had a large number of children by two marriages and brought our direct ancestry to London.

As William (20) was living with his mother, and carpenter Richard Lock, in 1861, it is quite possible that he learnt his own carpentry skills from his stepfather.  Their home was in Mary Street, which runs along the top of the town of Bovey Tracey, connected to Fore Street (the town centre) by the very steep Hind Street, and at the convergence of the two streets at the Town Hall.  Unfortunately, this census does not give a house number or name, but the majority of properties in Mary Street are old or refurbished cottages, so it is quite possible that the family lived in one of them.  Only three houses away lived Sarah Ann Prouse (19), listed as a laundress, and second daughter of shoemaker, Thomas Prouse.  In 1862 William and Sarah were married.

The 1871 census for Bovey Tracey finds William and Sarah, now 30 and 29 respectively, living in Hill Street, Bovey Tracey (Hill Street was the higher part of Mary Street, but is no longer named separately).  William’s widowed mother, Christian (60), is living with them, along with their five children: Caroline (8), William (7), Bessie (5), John (3) and Annie (1).  All would seem to be well in Bovey Tracey, but this was about to change in unfortunate circumstances as Sarah died the same year, age 30. 

Our next reference point is ten years on, where we find Caroline (18) and Bessie (15) living with their maternal grandfather, Thomas, but no record of William or his other children.

At the time of the 1871 census, in Cad Lane, Ashburton, lived a widow, Mary Ann Thomas, and her two daughters, Mary (19) and Anna Maria (18).  They worked in the local wool trade as serge weavers and wool sorters.  William remarried in early 1873 to Anna Maria Thomas, and their first child, Jessie Ann Thomas Speare was born in Back Lane (also known as  Cad Lane), Ashburton on 18 May the same year.  How William came to meet Anna will probably remain unknown, but he could well have been working in Ashburton at the time, as it is only a few miles from Bovey Tracey.

Two years later, on 26 April, 1875, Edgar Augustus Thomas Speare was born to William and Anna, again in Back lane, Ashburton.  The birth certificates of Jessie and Edgar both list William’s occupation as ‘carpenter’

The next census of 1881 records William, Anna and Edgar as living in living in London, although, interestingly, Jessie (7) is living with her maternal grandmother and aunt, still in Cad Lane, Ashburton.  They must have arrived there by 1879, as Arthur Henry (William and Anna’s second son) was born in Bethnal Green that year.  Whether we will ever find out the circumstances and method of their considerable journey from Ashburton to London, and why Jessie did not accompany them, is doubtful, but remains a subject of considerable curiosity.  As mentioned earlier, it seems that there is a possibility of William’s father, Samuel, already living in London.  Also, William Jr and John, William’s sons, and Annie, all from his marriage to Sarah in Bovey Tracey, are listed as living with the family at 232 Hackney Road, Bethnal Green.  Ten years on, they had moved to 27 Gales Gardens, Bethnal Green, and the 1891 census lists: William (50) carpenter, Anna (38) wife, John (23) boot finisher, Edgar (15) carpenter, Arthur (10), Alice (7), William (5) and Beatrice (1); the four younger children all being born in Bethnal Green.  Edgar had begun his carpentry apprenticeship in the February of that year (with George Treble, shop fitter and showcase maker of Dalston), thereby following in his father’s footsteps.  Incidentally, in 1891, Jessie (17) was still living in Ashburton with her Aunt Mary (40), both wool sorters.  There is one further birth registered in Bethnal Green, in 1882, for an Albert Speare, which we can presume was a son of William and Anna, but the child died early the next year.