Spring family

The Spring family is a Suffolk gentry family that has been involved in the politics and economy of East Anglia since the fifteenth century, and held large estates in Ireland from the sixteenth century.^[1]

History

Cockfield Hall, one of the seats of the Spring family for several generations

It is believed that the Springs are descended from Norman knights who arrived in England following the Norman invasion of 1066.^[2] The earliest recording of the family is in 1311 in northern England, where Lord Henry Spring was lord of the manor at a place that would become known as Houghton-le-Spring. The family first came to prominence in the town of Lavenham in Suffolk, where they were important merchants in the cloth and wool trade during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At the height of the wool trade in the late 1400s, the Springs were one of the richest families in England. The family owned over two dozen manor houses in the counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex,^[3] including Cockfield Hall, which they built in the 16th century, and Newe House. The most successful of the Spring merchants was Thomas Spring (c.1474–1523), who was the first member of the Suffolk Springs to hold public office, although an ancestor of Thomas Spring, John Spring, had been a Member of Parliament for Northampton in the early 1400s.^[4] Thomas Spring gave substantial funds for the construction of St Peter and St Paul's Church, Lavenham, where he lies buried.^[5]

Over following generations, the Springs firmly established themselves as minor nobility in Suffolk.^[6] This was partly facilitated through a series of advantageous marriages to major local families, such as the Waldegraves, Jermyns and de Veres. Additionally, successive generations of the family held public office, representing Suffolk in the House of Commons and occupying the role of High Sheriff of Suffolk. The Springs were supporters of the House of Lancaster throughout the Wars of the Roses, reflected by the grant of arms to the family by Henry VI. Sir John Spring (d.1549) was knighted by Henry VII and aided the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk in suppressing the Lavenham revolt of 1525, when he removed the church bells in Lavenham so that the rebels could not be called to arms. His son, Sir William, became High Sheriff of Suffolk in 1578 having served as MP for Suffolk and was knighted by Elizabeth I. His grandson was in turn knighted by James I, also serving as MP and High Sheriff of Suffolk.^[7] During this period, the Springs were committed Puritans and under their patronage Cockfield became a centre for Puritan thought and activity.^[8]

Church of St Peter and Paul, Lavenham, Suffolk, built with money from the Spring family

On 11 August 1641, Sir William Spring was created a baronet, of Pakenham in the County of Suffolk, in the Baronetage of England by King Charles I, in an attempt by the king to win the favour of Parliamentarian gentry families in the lead up to the Civil War. He was the High Sheriff of Suffolk and later served as MP for Bury St Edmunds and Suffolk, and was an active recruiter for the Parliamentarian army during the war. Following the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the family was issued with a general pardon for their actions against the king.^[9] Sir William's son, the second baronet, was also a MP for Suffolk and one of the earliest members to be designated a Whig.^[10] The family title became dormant on the death of the sixth baronet in 1769.

The Conservative politician Lord Risby (b.1946) is the most recent member of the family to represent Suffolk in the British Parliament. Numerous members of the family have served in the British Army, including Lieutenant-Colonel William Spring (1769-c.1839), Colonel Sir Thomas Spring (1822-1905), Colonel Frederick William Spring (1845 – 1925), Brigadier-General Frederick Spring (1878-1963), Major Trevor Spring (1882-1926) and Lieutenant-Colonel Kenneth Spring (1921–1997).^[11]

The family have a monument erected to them in the church of St Peter and St Paul in Lavenham and the parclose screen in the north aisle is to their chantry. Additional monuments to the family exist in Cockfield and Pakenham, as well as on Ullswater in the Lake District.

Springs in Ireland

In 1578, Captain Thomas Spring, the grandson of Thomas Spring of Lavenham, settled in Ireland as the Constable of Castlemaine, where there was a small English garrison. The Crown granted him over 3,000 acres of land in County Kerry and elsewhere in Munster. The family's secure financial position facilitated marriages with several Old English Munster dynasties. One of Thomas' descendants, Walter Spring, married a daughter of the Knight of Kerry and was involved in the Irish Rebellion of 1641, consequently forfeiting much of his land. His descendants married into the Anglo-Irish Rice family, establishing the Spring Rice family. This branch was raised to the peerage as Barons Monteagle of Brandon, after the Whig politician Thomas Spring Rice had served as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Future generations sat in the House of Lords as both Liberals and Conservatives until the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999. Sir Cecil Spring Rice (1859–1918) was the British Ambassador to the United States during the First World War, while his cousin, Thomas Spring Rice, 3rd Baron Monteagle of Brandon held minor diplomatic office. The 3rd Baron's sister was the Irish nationalist activist, Mary Spring Rice. The sixth baron, Gerald Spring Rice (1926–2013) was an officer in the Irish Guards.

The civil servant Sir Francis Spring (1849–1933), the army officer Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Spring Walker (1876-1941) and the Irish politician Dick Spring (b.1950) are also descended from the same family.

Motto and arms

The Spring coat-of-arms, here quartered with the Jermyn arms, displayed in Lavenham Guildhall.

The family motto is Non mihi sed Patriae (Latin), Not for myself but for my country.^[12]

Thomas Spring Esquire (died 1440) of Lavenham was granted a coat-of-arms in the first reign of Henry VI, thus elevating his family into the ranks of armigerous society. As the family moved from the merchant class to the minor nobility, the coat-of-arms was employed to convey the newly bestowed rank of the family.^[13] As such it is prominently displayed, alongside the arms of the Earl of Oxford, over thirty times on Lavenham church. Examples of the Spring arms, often quartered with other local noble families, can be found across Suffolk. The coat-of-arms is now borne by Thomas Spring's descendants.

The arms is described as "Argent on a chevron, between three mascles Gules, as many cinquefoils Or."^[12] The crest is an antelope or stag, quartered in gold and silver, although the crest of an eagle has also been used.

See also

• Spring baronets
• List of political families in the United Kingdom
• Lavenham

References

• Anderson, Verily (1993). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England. Lavenham, Suffolk: Terence Dalton Limited. p. 141/500. Retrieved 25 April 2013. 
• Betham, William (1803). The Baronetage of England III. London: W.S. Betham. p. 50. Retrieved 26 April 2013. 
• Betterton, Alec and David Dymond (1989). Lavenham; Industrial Town. Lavenham, Suffolk: Terence Dalton Limited. p. 51.  |accessdate= requires |url= (help)
• Burke, John and John Bernard Burke (1838). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England. London: Scott, Webster and Geary. p. 510. Retrieved 25 April 2013. 
• Burke, Bernard (1840). The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, Comprising a Registry of Armorial Bearings from the Earliest to the Present Time. London: Heritage Books. p. 956. Retrieved 6 September 2013. 
• Jackson, Chrsitine (2008). Boom-Time Freaks or Heroic Industrial Pioneers? Clothing Entrepreneurs in Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century Berkshire. London: Pasold Research Fund. p. 148. Retrieved 6 September 2013. 
• Howard, Joseph Jackson, ed. (1866). The Visitation of Suffolk I. London: Whittaker and Co. pp. 165–206. Retrieved 26 April 2013. 
• McClenaghan, Barbara (1924). The Springs of Lavenham: And the Suffolk Cloth Trade in the XV and XVI Centuries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 90. 
• Walker, Greg (1988). John Skelton and the Politics of the 1520s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 112. Retrieved 25 April 2013. 
• Stephens, Joel (1736). Symbola heroica: or the mottoes of the nobility and baronets of Great-Britain and Ireland; placed alphabetically. Gale ECCO. p. 36. Retrieved 25 December 2013. 
• Medieval Clothing and Textiles, by Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker