First World War in Headington and Marston
New Marston War Memorial

Frederick Alfred Lewis NEWPORT (1887–1916)

Frederick Alfred Lewis Newport (also known as Frederick Alfred Lewis Spiers) was born in Oxford in 1887, the son of Frederick Charles Newport Spiers (born in Headington or Oxford in 1867/8, registered first quarter of 1868) and Laura Jane Fletcher (born in Oxford in 1866, registered second quarter).

The surname of both Frederick and his father was officially Spiers rather than Newport because Frederick’s grandparents, Alfred Newport and Eliza Spiers, had married after his father’s birth (in the Oxford district in the third quarter of 1868).

Frederick’s parents were married in the second quarter of 1885 in the Oxford district and had eleven children, including the following, of whom eight were still alive in 1911:

• Frederick Alfred Lewis Spiers (born in St Barnabas, Oxford on 2 September 1887 and baptised at St Barnabas Church on 13 October 1887)
• Walter Newport Spiers (born in St Barnabas, Oxford in early 1891, died aged one, death registered first quarter of 1892)
• Harry James Spiers (born in St Barnabas, Oxford in 1894, registered Headington district fourth quarter)
• Nellie Beatrice Spiers (born in St Barnabas, Oxford in 1896, registered Headington district fourth quarter)
• George Redvers Newport Spiers (born in St Barnabas, Oxford in 1900, registered Headington district second quarter, and baptised eleven years later at St Nicholas’s Church, Old Marston on 18 December 1910 as George Alfred Spiers)
• Albert Edward Spiers (born in St Barnabas, Oxford in 1901, registered Headington district third quarter, and baptised nine years later at St Nicholas’s Church, Old Marston on 18 December 1910)
• Laura Louie Spiers (born in Oxford in 1904, registered Headington district third quarter, and baptised six years later at St Nicholas’s Church, Old Marston on 18 December 1910)
• Willie Spiers (born in Oxford in 1906/7, registered first quarter of 1907)
• Frank Spiers (born in Oxford in 1909, registered Headington district in third quarter; baptised at St Nicholas’s Church, Old Marston on 22 March 1911)
• Lionel Spiers (born in 1911, registered Headington district second quarter; died aged one in second quarter of 1912).

Before their marriage, Frederick’s father, Frederick Spiers/Newport senior, lived at 2 Caroline Street with his parents; while Frederick’s mother, Laura Fletcher, lived at 19 Victor Street in Jericho (which was part of St Thomas’s parish until St Barnabas’s Church was consecrated in 1869).

Frederick’s father was a marine store dealer. He and his wife (who were both minors at the time of their marriage) appear to have lived in the parish of St Barnabas in Oxford from 1887 to 1906, as all their children are stated by them to have been born there. Yet they spent census night of 1891 with Frederick (3) and Walter (3 months) at 16 Bath Street, St Clement’s, which may have been their shop, and similarly in 1901 they were at 103 Magdalen Road with Frederick (13), Harry (5), Nellie (3), and George (1)

By the time of the 1911 census Frederick’s six youngest brothers and sisters had moved to Edgeway Road, New Marston with their mother Laura, who was now using the surname Newport rather than Spiers. She described herself as both married and the head of the household and gave her occupation as “Marine store dealer”. Meanwhile Frederick’s father Frederick Charles Newport Spiers was boarding at 93 Magdalen Road in east Oxford with Mrs Eliza King (61). Frederick himself was not with either of his parents, and it is possible that he was the Frederick Newport (24), an Able Seaman on board HMS Pembroke, who spent census night at Chatham.

♥ In the second quarter of 1915 Frederick Spiers (Newport) married Rhoda Newell in the Nuneaton registration district. She was probably the Rhoda Ann Newell (born in Headington on 13 November 1888 and baptised in St Andrew’s Church on 28 September 1890) who was living with her parents in New High Street, Headington at the time of the 1891 census: she also lost a brother in the First World War.

Frederick and Rhoda had one son:

• Stanley Alfred Lewis Spires-Newport, birth registered Headington district fourth quarter of 1915 and baptised at St Clement’s Church, Oxford on 31 October 1915 (in both cases the surname is spelt as “Spires-Newport” rather than “Spiers-Newport”).

At the time of their son’s baptism Frederick and his wife Rhoda were living at 10 New Street (presumably in St Clement’s), and Frederick was described in the register as a Bombardier in the RFA. Later that year they appear to have been living in St John Street in Oxford.

In the First World War Frederick Alfred Lewis Newport (alias Spiers, alias Spiers-Newport) rose to be a Corporal in the “X” 25th T.M. Battery of the Royal Field Artillery (Service No. 83648). He was killed in action at the Somme in France on 3 September 1916, and was awarded the Military Medal.

He has no known grave, but is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial (Pier and Face 1A and 8A) and on the New Marston War Memorial on the Marston Road, Oxford.

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Postscript

Frederick’s father

• Frederick C. N. Spiers died at the age of 55 in the third quarter of 1923 in the Headington registration district.

Frederick’s widow

• Rhoda Spiers-Newport appears to have remarried within six months of Frederick’s death, as a Rhoda S. Newport married Francis Higginson in the Oxford registration district in the first quarter of 1917. Mrs Rhoda Higginson died at the age of 42 in the first quarter of 1931 in the Headington registration district.