I. Spooner
Service no. 25552
Private, Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment), 9th Battalion, formerly 015439 R.A.S.C.
Born in Lambeth; enlisted in Battersea; lived in Wandsworth
Killed in action on 1 September 1918, aged 24
CWGC: “Son of James and Matilda Spooner.”
Remembered at Vis-en-Artois Memorial, France
In 1911 ironmonger’s assistant Isaac Spooner, 17, lived at 39 Brooklands Road, Stockwell, where his family had six rooms. His father, James Spooner, 55, from Newham, Hampshire, was a train engine driver for London & South Western Railway; his mother, Matilda Jane (née Hector), 55, was from Brixton. Three of Spooner’s six siblings lived at home, his sister Norah, 31, a dressmaker’s assisant, and two brothers, Henry, 27, a carman, and Sidney James (Isaac’s twin), 17, a draper’s assistant (who also served in the Army Service Corps, was wounded by a bomb and survived – he died in 1929, aged 36).
Spooner enlisted in Battersea 0n 6 October 1914, giving his occupation as carman. He was 5ft 4½in, 8⅔st, with a 36in chest. He had blue eyes, brown hair and a sallow complexion, with a scar in the centre of his forehead and on his left cheek. His physical development was judged to be ‘Good’. On 8 July 1915 he joined the Expeditionary Force to France. On 20 August 1917 he was transferred to the West Riding Regiment.
Matilda, Spooner’s widowed mother, died aged 62 of sarcoma of the jaw on 20 November 1918, 11 weeks after her son was killed in action.
Information from the 1911 census
Ironmonger’s assistant Isaac Spooner, 17, lived at 39 Brooklands Road, Stockwell, where his family had 6 rooms. His father James Spooner, 55, from Newham, Hampshire, was a train engine driver for London & South West Railway; his mother Matilda Spooner, 55, was from Brixton. Three siblings (of six) lived at home: Henry Spooner, 27, a carman in Walworth; Norah Spooner, 31, a dressmaker working in Oxford Street; Sidney Spooner, 17, a draper’s assistant in Balham (and possibly Isaac’s twin). James and Matilda had a total of eight children (one died).
