Identity area
Type of entity
Family
Authorized form of name
Spurrell family, (of Carmarthen)
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
The House of Spurrell, printers and publishers, was founded in 1840 by William Spurrell (1813-89), the third son of Richard Spurrell and Elizabeth Thomas of Carmarthen. He worked for Bradley & Evans, London printers and publishers, 1835-1840, before returning to Carmarthen to set up his own business. Among his most important publications were his Welsh-English dictionary (1848), the English-Welsh dictionary (1853) and Carmarthen and its neighbourhood (1860). He also owned and edited Yr Haul, 1857-1884. He married Sarah Walter in 1846, and they had several children including Edith Spurrell (1848-1908), Dr Charles Spurrell (1866-1949) and Walter Spurrell (1858-1934). Walter joined the family business and in due course succeeded his father. He issued the West Wales Historical Records (14 vols, 1911-1929), the Journal of the Welsh Bibliographical Society and John Bodvan Anwyl's revised editions of the Welsh-English (1914) and English-Welsh (1916) dictionaries. He married Florence Mary Turner of Stoke Newington, London, in 1893 and they had a son, H. W. Spurrell. Following Walter's death in 1934 the business passed out of the hands of the family. H. W. Spurrell inherited the family papers.