Thomas Henry Sparshott

Thomas Henry Sparshott (31 December 1841 – 10 January 1927) was an English Anglican priest, also known as Rev Tom. He served as a missionary in East Africa and in Mombasa, Kenya, as curate and vicar to various English congregations, as chaplain to George Cholmondeley, 4th Marquess of Cholmondeley, and as chaplain to a home for the daughters of female prisoners. For eighteen years he was organising secretary of the Church Association.

Sparshott was known as a "powerful evangelical" preacher. He was a vocal antagonist against the Oxford Movement, and gave lectures and wrote to newspapers on the subject. While serving as chaplain to the Marquess of Cholmondeley, he edited A Nika-English Dictionary, on the subject of a Mijikenda language, and a translation of the Gospel of Luke, in Swahili.

Background
Sparshott's family background was of cooperage and trading. His paternal grandfather was Thomas Sparshott, a cooper, who ran a hardware shop selling casks and turnery at Canon Street, Winchester, and then, from 1832, at 17 High Street, Winchester, opposite the City Arms Inn. His paternal grandmother was Martha Brown.

However Sparshott's parental background was financially insecure, and his work as a cooper may have partially paid for his training. His father was Henry Bartlett Sparshott,  a licensed victualler, cooper, basket-maker and brush salesman, of Jewry Street,  Winchester. His mother was Mary Haynes. His parents married in 1838, but by the 1840s, H.B. and Mary Sparshott were in Alton Workhouse (which served the Farringdon parish), with their first child Henrietta. H.B. Sparshott's business revived, but failed again in 1874. He was nevertheless called a gentleman and accepted for jury service in Winchester.

Sparshott, the second of five siblings, was born at Farringdon, Hampshire, on 31 December 1841. He assisted at the marriage of his sister Henrietta in 1876. Henrietta's son was Reverend Thomas Sparshott Johnson, a missionary to Colombo in Ceylon from 1903 to 1904. His younger brother William assisted his father in the Anchor pub in East Tisted, and afterwards in the hardware shop. His youngest brother, Edward, died aged nine in 1857, after a brief illness, and his youngest sister Fanny died in 1870, aged 24 years.

First marriage
On 1 August 1867 at Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland, Sparshott married Margaret McArthur. He had nine children by his first marriage: Hugh McArthur, Margaret Elwyn, Mary Jane, Henrietta Burt, John McArthur, Matthew McLean S., William Romaine, and two unnamed children. The family does not appear in the 1871 census, because they were in East Africa on a missionary tour of duty. In 1881, the Census finds Sparshott, his first wife Margaret and four of their children living at The Parsonage, Cholmondeley, Cheshire.

Margaret McArthur Sparshott died on 14 July 1885, aged 48, after suffering "acute mania" for twelve days, and then exhaustion. Sparshott's daughter Margaret Elwyn Sparshott, CBE, RRC, was matron of Manchester Royal Infirmary from 1907 to 1929. In 1930 a new nurses' home in Manchester was named Sparshott House in her memory, and there is a blue plaque on the hospital in her honour.

Second marriage
On 16 July 1890 at Holy Trinity Church, Eastbourne, Sparshott married his second wife Laura Lavinia Haynes, who was twenty years his junior and outlived him by about twelve years. He had nine children by his second marriage, of which eight survived. They were engineer Thomas, Frederick Walter, Laura Dorothy, Charles Henry, Nellie or Nelly, Rowland Frank N., Ernest Harold, Clarrie, and Rosalie Grace.

By 1891, they were staying at the house of his father-in-law Frederick Haynes, a solicitor's clerk. By 1898, Sparshott had residences at Wimbledon and The Strand. According to the 1901 Census, Sparshott, his wife Laura, four of their children, one child from his first marriage (William Romaine, a ledger clerk), and three servants were living at 18 Queen's Road, South Wimbledon, Surrey. By 1911, Sparshott, his second wife, and five of the eight surviving children of that marriage were living at 9 Grosvenor Hill, Eureka, Wimbledon, London.

Retirement and death
In 1920, having completed his service at Weybread Church, Sparshott retired to Hastings, where in 1921 he was recorded living with his wife Laura, and two of their daughters, Clarrie a schoolteacher, and Rosalie, still at school. He lived there for the rest of his life, remaining active in church matters to the end. A few days before his death, he "took part in the meetings at the Priory-Street Institute in connection with the world's Evangelical Alliance Week of Prayer". Sparshott died in Hastings on 10 January 1927. He was buried on 13 January 1927 in St Andrew's churchyard, Hastings, after a choral service in the church. There were "many present" at the funeral, including the St Andrew's Women's Meeting, of which his wife was the leader. St Andrew's Church was demolished in 1970.

Career
Sparshott began his working life as a cooper in his father's hardware business, and was still working there in 1861, possibly to pay for his theological training.

Training and ordination
Sparshott was trained at the Church Missionary Society College, Islington, from 1864, graduating in 1867. He was ordained deacon in 1867 by the Bishop of London for colonial work, and ordained priest in 1871 by the Bishop of Mauritius.

Missionary service
Sparshott was a missionary of the Church Mission Society (CMS), serving for eight years and six months. He may have gained his nickname, "Rev Tom", during this period. His first placement, between 7 September 1867 and 2 June 1872, was in Kisuldini in the Seychelles (then part of Mauritius) and elsewhere in East Africa, including Zanzibar. He then returned to England. Between 6 October 1873 and 24 September 1875 he served in Mombasa, Kenya, then returned again to England. His connexion with the CMS was closed on 25 April 1876.

Service in England
Sparshott was organising secretary of the Church Association for eighteen years, from 1881 to c. 1899. This involved lecturing and preaching "all over England". He was its deputation secretary from 1893.

Sparshott was curate of St Nicholas Church, Buckenham, Norfolk, from 1872 to 1873. He was temporary junior curate of Hexham Abbey Church in 1876. He was curate of St Nicholas Church, Swafield, Norfolk, from 1876 to 1877, then of St Mary's Church, Syderstone, Norfolk, from 1877 to 1879. From 1879 to 1889, he was domestic chaplain to George Cholmondeley, 4th Marquess of Cholmondeley, at Cholmondeley Castle, Cheshire, for which he received a benefice. He "resigned his appointment in order to accept a more active sphere of work at Salisbury". Between 1890 and 1891, he was temporary curate of St Mary's Church, Luddenden, Halifax, covering the illness of its vicar, Rev. James Moore. In Halifax he was "recalled locally... for his powerful evangelical preaching". Between 1892 and 1894, he was chaplain of Princess Mary's Village Homes, in Addlestone, Surrey. This was a home for daughters of women prisoners. Between 1911 and 1920, he was vicar of St Andrew's Church, Weybread, Suffolk.

Church politics
Sparshott was a vocal antagonist against the Oxford Movement, and he gave lectures on the subject. In November 1890 he spoke strongly at a Church Association meeting, saying that "the Evangelical party... were in very great danger of the bishops" of the Oxford Movement. In October 1893 he gave a lecture described as being "on priesthood", in Sheffield. On 1 November of the same year, his lecture in Northampton was announced as The Mass, Unscriptural, Non-Catholic and Opposed to the Teaching of the Church of England. Sparshott repeated the lecture to a "not very numerous" audience in Southampton on 22 November. As organising deputation secretary of the Church Association, he published a letter in the Grantham Journal in 1897 on the definition of "priest". He said that instead of priests being sacrificers of masses for the dead, as they were before the Reformation, as Anglicans they were now just presbyters, or evangelists. This gave rise to some controversy. In the same vein, in 1901 in Staines, he gave a lecture titled, Ritualism, the Highway to Rome, saying that the Bible, not ribbons on clerical robes, was the source for his beliefs. At a Church Association meeting in Rugby in November 1893, Sparshott spoke on the subject of the dispute between the English Church Union, whom he called "ritualists", and the Church Association.

Publications and other writings

 * (Subject: Mijikenda languages).
 * The British Library has the following unpublished material in its collection: Kenya Mission: Original papers: Letters and papers of individual missionaries Rev. Thomas Henry Sparshott (1868).
 * (Subject: Mijikenda languages).
 * The British Library has the following unpublished material in its collection: Kenya Mission: Original papers: Letters and papers of individual missionaries Rev. Thomas Henry Sparshott (1868).
 * The British Library has the following unpublished material in its collection: Kenya Mission: Original papers: Letters and papers of individual missionaries Rev. Thomas Henry Sparshott (1868).