Talk:George Spero (politician)

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Date of Death

Spero basically disappeared after his bankruptcy, and his fate was unknown for decades. Someone has recently updated this article with a date in 1960, which is supported by his entry in the National Portrait Gallery website (this itself must be a recent update, but has no source reference.) However, the introduction of The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History (2011) states "(his) date of death... has hitherto been unknown, but we have ascertained that he died in 1976 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia." In Spero's entry in this work the date is given as "June 1976", and the entry goes on to say "His death in Belgrade was registered with the US Embassy there." Also, in this work his date of birth is given as 11 April 1894, not 2 March 1894. RodCrosby (talk) 20:48, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've been working on tracking this and I now think that the 1960 date is correct; there seems to be a clear chain of records from his entry into the US in 1930 to his death in 1960, during which time he also changed his name to Spears. I'll update the article when I have some more reliable data. Andrew Gray (talk) 11:36, 24 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, here follow the promised notes.

Spero's last recorded speech in Parliament was July. He (and his wife Rina) apparently sailed for Canada in August 1929. It is not clear if he returned to the UK later in the year, but by April 1930, the whole family including the two daughters were living in a nice area of upper Manhattan in time for the US census. His naturalisation papers survive (with his photo!) and confirm that he lived in New York and then Beverly Hills during the 1930s, practising as a physician.
On naturalisation in 1938, he explicitly changed his name to "George Ernest Spears". Under this name, he reappears in New York in the 1940 census (again with the family), but now in business as an optician (and doing very nicely - $6000/year). The last confirmed record of him at this point is his 1942 draft card, which has him moved to Huntingdon, Long Island (confirmed as the same person as it lists his wife), though during the 1940s and 1950s there is a "Dr George Spero" practising as an opthalmologist on the Lower East Side, and it's possible he reverted to the old name for a bit.
He finally appears on the California death records on 7 January 1960, "George E Spears", dying in Riverside County, California - there is no clear link to show why he moved to California, but the identity seems solid, as the birthdate and his mother's maiden name both match.

@RodCrosby: - may be of some interest. The only thing I'm unsure about is calling him "Ernest". The contemporary newspaper reports either seem to give his full name or call him George; any idea where this came from? Andrew Gray (talk) 20:37, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting information, but does not explain the 1976 date researched by Palgrave. Were there two (ultimately) US resident GE Speros born in 1894, or.. was the 1960 "death" another disappearing act by the same slippery GE Spero? I think the discrepancy should be noted in the article RodCrosby (talk) 20:38, 28 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Name

Was Ernest the most common name? I've been delving through the British Newspaper Archive and contemporary reporting seemed to use "George Spero" ("Dr Spero" or "GE Spero" is most common, but George was generally used where a first name was present). Andrew Gray (talk) 21:51, 5 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've moved the page to reflect this, as I've not found anything more to support Ernest being the most common name. Andrew Gray (talk) 14:44, 17 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]