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Introduction

Richard James Spiers FSA (1806-1877)

AUG 13 SAT. We arose at ½ past 4 much against our friend Bridge's & Willis’ wishes or their ideas of enjoyment. But those who have strength & courage sufficient have infinitely more enjoyment than the idle or irresolute. We were indebted to it for a quiet treat in the citadel of Antwerp. (Memorandum of an Autumn Tour 1836)

Welcome to these pages of documents which show that Richard James Spiers, an Oxford businessman and mayor in 1853-4, was never idle nor irresolute, and that whatever he did he did enthusiastically and enjoyed. His diary and journals give a view of national and domestic life in the nineteenth century.

He went down into Brunel's Thames tunnel, travelled by coach until the welcome arrival of the railways, toured Europe, took part in the Great Exhibition and joined the national institutions for the arts, archaeology and science. He was an early member of this society.

We can see the importance of family and friends in his life and how infant mortality and early death could strike anywhere. Other strands, such as education (especially for girls), religion, town and gown, freemasonry, photography, science, music and art, can be teased out and fitted into a wider picture.

The diary was bequeathed to the Society by Ellen Katherine Spiers (1919-2008), the widow of Spiers' last descendent, Richard Godfrey Morris Spiers (1913-2005), and later we gratefully accepted a gift from Stephanie Jenkins, local historian, of two travel journals written by Spiers and two family registers by Spiers and his son Arthur Hood Spiers (1853-1940). These had been kindly sent to her in 2009 by a resident of Dartmouth who had bought them at the dispersal sale of the Spiers' household goods and felt that they needed to come back to Oxford. These have been transcribed by Genefer Clark and can be read in the following pages.

Stephanie has researched Spiers’ life and this can be found at her St Sepulchre's cemetery website http://www.stsepulchres.org.uk/burials/spiers_richard.html

Her Oxford History website covers many aspects of the background to his life such as the streets and houses where he lived and the people he knew and worked with. http://www.oxfordhistory.org.uk

Figure 1 Richard James Spiers by Herbert Watkins. Albumen print, late 1850s (NPG P301(125)) © National Portrait Gallery, London This is the licence for using the image:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.



Figure 2 Bookplate of Richard James Spiers (motto: Dum Spiro Spero – while I breathe, I hope - clearly also a pun on his name)

In these pages you will find:
A transcript of his edited diary (1821-1877) - to be added soon
Transcripts and pages from two of his travel journals (1836 and 1837)


Further pages will be added soon