Rev William Henry Spinks
William Henry Spinks was born in Worthing, Sussex, in 1873. He was the son of George Henry Spinks and his wife Elizabeth (née Hammond) who were married in Depwade, Norfolk, in 1867.
William had two brothers Ernest and Albert and two sisters Florence and Bessie. Three other siblings had died young.
When William was born his parents had just moved from Finsbury, Middlesex,
to Worthing, not far from his mother’s home town of Bognor Regis.
By 1881 William’s father was established as a draper employing six people in Worthing and the Spinks family was living at 21 Warwick Street. Not long after this, however, William’s father became a commercial traveller and moved his family to Hawthorn Cottage, 1 Alma Villas, Ipswich.
In later years William’s parents lived at 49 Leys Avenue, Letchworth, Hertfordshire and William’s father, until his death in 1912, was a gentleman’s outfitter.
William Spinks was an assistant pastor with the Rev. W. E. Bloomfield at Coventry at the beginning of his ministerial career. After a period in Bristol he was then appointed to the pastorate of Whyte’s Causeway Baptist Church, Kirkaldy, Fife, in March 1900.
On 18th September 1900 he was married at Queen’s Road Baptist Church, Coventry, to Ada Salmon, the daughter of an Inspector of Weights and Measures, of Warwick House, Earlsdon, near Coventry.
The Rev. W. E. Bloomfield officiated at the service. After a honeymoon at Braemar the couple returned to 4 Victoria Gardens, Kirkaldy.
After five and a half years in Kirkaldy William received a call from the Wood Gate Baptist Church in Loughborough and tendered his resignation at Kirkaldy.
In October 1905 he and his wife moved south to 3 Park Street, Loughborough. He held the pastorate at Wood Gate for eleven years until July 1916 when he obtained three months leave of absence from the church in order to work for the Young Men’s Christian Association ( YMCA) in France.
In November 1914 the YMCA had gone to France and set up a recreation centre in Le Havre. Later they set up in Rouen, Boulogne, Dieppe, Etaples and Calais, which were the main Army Bases. They also set up in the railway junctions at Abbeville, Dunkirk, Abancourt, Paris and Marseilles. They served up refreshments for the troops and provided writing and reading material which was of enormous value to the soldiers.
Some of the staff of the YMCA, totalling over 1,500 in France and Flanders alone, worked in hospitals giving pastoral care and nursing support.
A number of these were religious men too old or unfit to fight, but significantly some were also clergymen, like Rev. Spinks, who had opted against taking a chaplains’ commission, and 40 per cent were also women, often from the middle classes.
William went to Etaples where there were at least two large hospitals in marquees adjacent to the base camp.
The YMCA was accommodated in huts and in 1916 to keep up with demand had more than 33 huts stationed around the various training camps which together constituted the Etaples base.
At Etaples the huts not only provided refreshments but also concerts, lectures, weekly Bible study and free French lessons; making the most of the men’s leisure time in camp.
The YMCA prohibited the sale of alcohol in their huts and the hut environment was promoted as a wholesome alternative to the estaminets and bars outside of the camp. While the YMCA operated from a spiritual basis in which faith was related to real life, the priority of most of the YMCA’s activities in base camps such as Etaples was to boost the morale of the soldiers.
Before William’s three months leave of absence from Loughborough expired he sent in his resignation of the Wood Gate pastorate in order that he might devote himself entirely to YMCA work.
William continued working for the YMCA until his health broke down.
He returned to England to recover and for a time went into a business occupation in Leicester until he was again accepted for YMCA work.
William went back to Etaples in mid-May 1918 but had only been there a few days when, on Sunday 19th May, a hospital at Etaples in which he was engaged in ministerial duties was bombed by the Germans.
While sheltering a young Chinese man with his own body William was severely wounded by shrapnel, with one serious wound at the base of his spine.
William’s wife, who was living in Letchworth with William’s widowed mother, left for France to visit her husband but when she reached Folkestone she learnt that he had died from his injuries on 29th May. He was aged 45.
William was buried in Etaples Military Cemetery, Grave XXVIII. M. 7. He was posthumously awarded the British War Medal.
On 24th September 1919 a memorial tablet for William was unveiled at Wood Gate Baptist Church. William is also remembered on the Carillon.