Edward Spears - Family and Early Life

Family and Early Life

He was born of British parents at 7 chaussée de la Muette in the fashionable district of Passy in Paris on 7 August 1886; France would remain the land of his childhood. His parents, Charles McCarthy Spiers and Melicent Marguerite Lucy Hack, were British residents of France. His paternal grandfather was the noted lexicographer, Alexander Spiers, who had published an English-French and French-English dictionary in 1846. The work was extremely successful and adopted by the University of France for French Colleges. Edward Louis Spears changed his name from 'Spiers' to 'Spears' in 1918. He claimed that the reason was his irritation at the mispronunciation of Spiers, yet it is possible that he wanted an English looking name – something more in keeping with his rank as a brigadier-general and head of the British Military Mission to the French War Office. He denied that he was of Jewish stock, but his great-grandfather had been an Isaac Spiers of Gosport who married Hannah Moses, a shopkeeper of the same town. His ancestry was no secret. In 1918 the French ambassdor in London described him as "a very able and intriguing Jew who insinuates himself everywhere."

His parents separated while he was a child, and his maternal grandmother played an important role during his formative years. The young Louis (the name used by his friends) was often on the move, usually with his grandmother – Menton, Aix-les-Bains, Switzerland, Brittany and Ireland. He had contracted diphtheria and typhoid as an infant and was considered delicate. However, after two years at a tough boarding school in Germany, his physical condition improved and he became a strong swimmer and an athlete.