John Spicer

Several men of this name have lived in Hessle starting with a John Spicer who is recorded in 1699 as leasing land at Hessle to Robert Scott.

In 1772 Documents of the Charterhouse record the name of John Spicer as holding land in Hessle.

The Spicers are recorded as holding land on both the 1796 Enclosure Map and as Spicer's Devisees on the Survey of Hessle by Iveson in 1853. Part of the land shown in 1853 was a farm at the southern end of South Lane.

A third John Spicer was born c 1771 and died on January 13th 1839. He held the rights to the ferry and the coal business on the west side of the Haven. He was married to Mary who survived him. His will dated, 12th January 1839, was proved at York in the following month and probate was granted to T B Locke and J R Pease and eleven years later it was also proved in London (July 1850). He also had a sister, Ann who lived in Wakefield and was a spinster on his death.

There is a gravestone to John Spicer in All Saints' Church.

“IN A VAULT BENEATH THIS STONE ARE DEPOSITED THE REMAINS OF JOHN SPICER OF HESSLE WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE THE 13TH JANUARY 1839 AGED 68 YEARS.”

A daughter Ann, he wife of Dr Francis Bine Anderson, is also recorded in a stained glass window on the north wall of the church.

Another John Spicer was the one born around 1806-1807. He was something of an entrepreneur and character in the mid nineteenth century. He owned land and had a virtual monopoly over trade at the Haven including the right to bring in coal. In the 1830’s he was attacked in the Hull Portfolio by John Acland of Hull for his monopolistic tendencies. Spicer was also a church warden and a farmer and at one time owned the house at the western end of Prestongate. He was also involved in the railway accident of 1847 but survived without injury and gave evidence to the inquiry. He was married to Elizabeth, fifteen years his junior, who bore him a son, also called John.

Another bearer of the name, son of the above, was born in 1849 or 1850. He became a licensed victualler and held the George, Prestongate, in the 1880s.