Sir Wilfrid Bliss Spender
KCB
CBE
DSO
MC
(6 October 1876 ? 21 December 1960) was a
British Army
officer, colonial administrator and civil servant who helped re-organise the
Ulster Volunteers
(UVF) into the
Ulster Special Constabulary
and was responsible for laying the foundations for the civil service of
Northern Ireland
. He served as Secretary to the
government of Northern Ireland
from 1921 to 1925 and
Permanent Secretary
to the Ministry of Finance from 1925 to 1944.
[1]
He was knighted in 1929. His wife,
Lady Spender (nee Alice Lilian Dean; 1880-1966)
, was a member of the UVF Nursing Corps and worked in the Ulster Division Comforts Fund during
World War I
. Later in life Spender became a noted diarist.
Family life
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Wilfrid Bliss Spender was born in
Plymouth
, England, the third son of Edward and Ellen (nee Rendle) Spender. His father was co-founder of the
Western Morning News
in
Plymouth
. When Wilfrid was one year old, his father and two elder brothers were drowned whilst boating at
Whitsand Bay
outside Plymouth.
[
citation needed
]
Education/service
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He was educated at
Winchester College
and the
Staff College, Camberley
. He obtained a commission first in the
Devon artillery
. In 1897 he joined the
Royal Artillery
, seeing service in
Bermuda
,
Canada
,
Malta
,
England
,
Ireland
, and
India
. He was promoted to
lieutenant
18 June 1900, and to
captain
on 13 February 1902.
[2]
[3]
After Camberley he was nominated to attend a naval war course, one of the first two army staff officers to be so chosen. In 1909 became a member of the home defence section of the Imperial Defence Committee, which was then involved with the general defence of the United Kingdom. He was at one point the youngest staff officer in the British army.
[4]
He organized, and partly financed, a national petition against proposed
Home Rule
in Ireland, and helped establish the
Junior Imperial League
. He accepted an invitation to stand for
Parliament
, but withdrew when the rules were changed to place officers on half pay if they entered parliament. He signed the
Ulster Covenant
when it was opened for signature in England. In 1913 he was allowed to retire from his army commission, refusing to resign with the rank of Captain and pension of £120 per year. A confidential inspection report of 1913 commented that Captain Spender had been led away by a 'too active conscience' and had been very injudicious, risking his prospects in life. While disputing being forced to leave the army, feeling his services were required in Ulster, Spender sought legal advice from Sir
Edward Carson
. He invited Spender to Belfast to help organise the
Ulster Volunteer Force
, a paramilitary group to resist Home Rule.
[
citation needed
]
During a period of leave from service in
India
, Spender met an old friend, Alice Lilian Dean. They were married within a few weeks. After a ten-day
honeymoon
, he and his wife travelled to Belfast, where Spender became Quartermaster General of the UVF, based at the Old Town Hall in Belfast, while remaining a director of his newspaper in Plymouth. In December 1913, amid widespread suspicions that sympathy for the Unionist cause might make army officers reluctant to move against the Ulster Volunteers, the
CIGS
Sir John French
recommended that Spender be cashiered (stripped of his commission - a social disgrace that disqualified the person from any further Crown employment)
"pour decourager les autres"
, but this did not happen.
[5]
The Great War
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In July 1914 Spender, as a retired officer, was told to hold himself ready to take up an appointment with the eastern command in Chatham. He returned to England. After the outbreak of war, he was transferred as general staff officer to the new
36th (Ulster) Division
. He served with the Ulster division until 1916, and was present at the
Battle of the Somme
, when he won the
Military Cross
for his part in the assault on
Thiepval
. He also won the
DSO
and was
mentioned in despatches
four times. In 1916 he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and served with
General
Lord Cavan
's corps, and then at advanced general headquarters working under
Field Marshal
Sir Douglas Haig
(later created
Lord Haig
).
Spender strongly opposed accepting a proposed six-county option for the
partition of Ireland
, and on these grounds, he declined an invitation from Carson to contest an Ulster constituency at Westminster. About the same time, he gave some support to moves to launch a national party in England ? "to promote Reform, the Union and Defence" ? and considered seeking nomination for parliament in a constituency in
Devon
or
Cornwall
. Following the war, he joined the
Ministry of Pensions
in London.
Partition of Ireland
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In 1920 he was approached by Carson and Craig and asked to return to Belfast to help reorganize the UVF. They formed the
Ulster Special Constabulary
.
With the
partition of Ireland
in 1921 Spender was appointed as Cabinet Secretary in Northern Ireland and, in 1925, as permanent secretary at the Ministry of Finance. He opposed any discrimination on religious grounds in the civil service, but was unable to prevent Unionist members of the Northern Ireland parliament dominating the selection boards for other ranks. He was never a member of the
Orange Order
, despite claims to the contrary from certain quarters.
[
citation needed
]
Later life
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]
Sir Wilfrid retired in 1944 and returned to England in 1955, he died of heart failure on 21 December 1960 at the East Hill Hotel, his home at
Liss, Hampshire
. He was survived by Lady Spender (died 1966), whom he married in 1913. They had one child, a daughter, Patricia, Mrs. Dingwall.
[
citation needed
]
Quote
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- "I am not an Ulsterman but yesterday, the 1st. July, as I followed their amazing attack, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world."
(Cpt Wilfred Spender, 2 July 1916)
References
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Sources
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