Baron W H Spicer (Bd 61)

William Michael Hardy Spicer, Baron Spicer, PC (22 January 1943 – 29^th May 2019)

Michael joined Wellington in The Beresford in 1956. As a schoolboy, he was a keen actor and sportsman. In 1960 he was appointed Head of School and in later years became a College Governor. At his memorial service in 2019, his best friend Colonel Christopher Miers (Bd 59) recalled that Michael’s tutor had once described him as having ‘the very valuable knack of getting on with difficult elements and of bringing the best out of people who are not by nature co-operative. As Head of School, he has remained the humble, unaffected person he has always been the limelight has not gone to his head; and that has been immensely to his credit and to his advantage’.  Meanwhile, The Master of Wellington at the time had written ‘As a companion and friend he is first rate not least when one is making mistakes. As an intelligent and courageous leader he is outstanding. He has rendered grand service, and it has all been rather fun too. I am most grateful.’

Michael went on to Cambridge, where he read Economics and established a political pressure group, Pressure for Economic and Social Toryism (PEST). On coming down from university, he started work as a financial journalist, and soon joined the Conservative Research Department.  An astute businessman, he founded Economic Models, a successful economic forecasting enterprise which he later sold. Elected for South Worcestershire in 1974, he served his constituents for 36 years and held several ministerial roles. As Chairman of the 1922 Committee, he oversaw three elections for leadership of the Conservative Party. Latterly, he regularly attended the House of Lords and took a particular interest in European affairs.

He had many other interests. He wrote half a dozen novels and a couple of serious political books including ‘Treaty Too Far’ about Maastricht and The Spicer Diaries which has been described as ‘a very readable canter through some of the key developments of the last forty years of British politics’. He also painted, enjoying a successful exhibition in at the Stern Pissarro Gallery in St James’s in 2016. For nine years, he was chairmen and captain of the Lords and Commons Tennis Club.

Michael loved all things military. In his time, he was RSM and drum major in the Combined Cadet Force, in recognition of which six Wellingtonian drummers and a bugler took part in his memorial service in St. Margaret’s, Westminster in 2019. He was awarded a scholarship to Sandhurst through Wellington. Although he chose a different path, he retained his love of the military and fostered a similar love in his grandchildren, teaching them to march around the garden and taking them to watch marching bands in St James’s Park, and to Beatings of the Retreat. Instead of waving goodbye to them he would always salute. He regularly attended The Guards Chapel in London on Sundays.

To Michael’s great delight, one grandson, Edward, became particularly inspired to follow the military path he had illuminated. In his final days in hospital, Michael asked Edward, a keen trumpeter, to play the Last Post at his memorial service, reassuring him that he would be supported by the Wellingtonian Band, as indeed he was.

Like his grandfather, Edward had joined his school’s CCF and planned a career in The Army. Tragically, Edward was killed in a road traffic accident soon after his grandfather’s death. In the wake of this, Edward’s parents, became trustees of Veterans Coastal Retreats (VCR), which provides much-needed respite for veterans and their families by offering them short breaks and access to outdoor activities by the coast. To find out more about VCR or to find out how you can support their work, please visit: https://veteranscoastalretreats.org

With thanks to Annabel, Baron Spicer’s daughter, for this article.