George Neville Sperryn's Ledger
George's ledger spans 57 years.
It has its first entry before he was married in 1907 and the last is in 1964 about a year before his death early in 1966.
He started the ledger when he bought his first family home (25 Wye Cliff Rd) and married Alice.
George bought both 25 & 33 Wye Cliff Rd in 1907 for £575 each, with a £400 mortgage on No 25.
He put down a deposit of £57 10/- for No 25 on 3rd Aug.
On 6th Sept he paid lawyers' fees and bought a bath for No 25, which suggests that the house was newly built. He had gas fires installed on 11th Sept, a week before he and Alice married on 19th Sept.
There's no record of whether he bought a bath for No 33, which he rented out for £41 per quarter.
Household Expenses for 25 Wye Cliff Rd 1907 - 1919
Capital Account 1908 - 1920
Income Tax 1907 - 1920
George kept his ledger up to 1919 using a year of September to September, but changed to calendar years from then on.
He appears to have sold both 25 & 33 Wyeclyff Rd in 1918 and moved into 'Cartref', though his 'capital account' misses out 1919 entirely, and his income tax accounts suggest he moved in 1920.
His 1916, 1917 & 1918 income tax returns appear twice with slightly different figures in 2 parts of the ledger.
Cartref remained his family home until he moved into Beechcroft on 3rd. May 1935.
During his time at Beechcroft his ledger shows that he gave 2½% of his income (salary+commission+fees) to charity. Who today is so disciplined? Possibly it was a masonic commitment. His youngest son Paul had the impression George would not have been a member of the local lodge if it wasn't necessary in order to do business.
In 1928 George started giving his 20 yr old eldest daughter an allowance, though he still paid for her holidays for some years.
In 1925 he'd bought his wife (ABS - Alice Beartice Sperryn) a car for £186 8/2. This was half the cost of the 2 holiday cottages in an acre of land that he bought on the Welsh coast five years later. The cottages are still in the family, so George's accounts for them don't appear in this website, but any relative with an interest in them can contact us to see them.
In 1936 his eldest son, Neville, contracted polio. This appears in red in the acccounts, with doctor's fees exceeding the cost of his wife's car and holiday cottages put together.
Capital Account 1921 - 1930 (final entry)
Income Tax 1920 - 1934/5
Helpfully, in the 1931/2 tax year George lists its full address: 113 Witton Lodge Rd. Today that's B23 5JD and is a hairdressers.
George's last income tax entry was 1950/1, which shows that he still owns 113 Witton Lodge Rd and hadn't yet moved from Beechcroft to Beechwood, Moorhall Park his final home. A postcard from his son shows he lived at Beechwood in 1956.
Household Expenses for Beechcroft & Beechwood 1937 - 1963
Income Tax 1935/6 - 1950/1
Other records in the ledger are details of his account with Lloyds & National Provincial Foreign Bank in Paris and various investments including his 1908 shares in R S Stokvis & Zonen, Rotterdam.
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