Wilfrid Spender

Sir Wilfrid Bliss Spender, MC (6 October 1876 - 21 December 1960) was an army officer, colonial administrator and civil servant - being responsible for laying the foundations for the civil service of Northern Ireland. He served as Secretary to the Northern Ireland Cabinet, 1921-1925, Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Finance, 1925-1944. [ [http://www.proni.gov.uk/records/private/spender.htm PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE of NORTHERN IRELAND, Lady Spender's Diaries] ] He was knighted in 1929. His wife, Lillian, was a noted diarist.

Family life

Sir Wilfrid was the son of Edward Spender, co-founder of the "Western Morning News" in Plymouth; his father and two elder brothers were later drowned whilst boating at Whitsand Bay outside Plymouth when Wilfrid was one year old.

Education &c.

He was educated at Winchester College and the Staff College, Camberley. He obtained a commission first in the Devon artillery and then in 1897 in the Royal Artillery. He saw service in Bermuda, Canada, Malta, England, Ireland, and India, mostly on the north-west frontier. 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 organized, and partly financed, a national petition against Home Rule, 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 [913 he was allowed to retire from his commission, refusing to resign with the rank of Captain and £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. Whilst disputing his leaving the army, feeling his services were required in Ulster, he sought legal advice from Sir Edward Carson; Carson invited Splender to Belfast to help organise the Ulster Volunteer Force. During a period of leave from service in India he met once again an old friend, Lillian Dean, they were married within a few weeks.

After a ten-day honeymoon he and his wife traveled to Belfast where Splender became Quartermaster General of the UVF, he was also still a director of his newspaper in Plymouth.

The Great War

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 and, after the outbreak of war, 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 dispatches four times. In 1916 he was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel, and served with Lord Cavan's corps, and then at advanced general headquarters working under Lord Haig.

He was strongly opposed to accepting a six-county option for partition in 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, but in 1920 he was approached by Carson and Craig and asked to return to Belfast to help reorganize the UVF.

In 1921 he became Cabinet Secretary in Northern Ireland and, in 1925, 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 friend, let alone a member, of the Orange Order.

Later life

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 in Hampshire. He was survived by Lady Spender and their only child, Daffodil, born in Belfast in 1923.

References

*The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography