SPRAGUE, Robert Winter (1834-1885) — London
Printer & lithographer. As ‘Sprague & Co.’, produced maps and profiles for a proposed dock to be built by Sir Charles Fox at Hubberston Pill, Milford Haven 1863; Map of Glengariff Harbour, for the Irish Industrial Magazine published by the Dublin firm of ‘McGlashan & Gill’ (see Michael Henry Gill) 1866; a prospectus of the Patent Duplex Bridge & General Bridge Building Company, with a plan of the proposed Duplex Tower Bridge ca.1882; his successor firm, still as ‘Sprague & Co.’ produced ground plans of cathedrals and priories for The Builder 1892-1899; Charles H. Lowe, Map of the borough of Hampstead, London 1900, etc. Further known for illustrations, views, etc. Also published John Bland, ‘The disestablishment of the sun; endeavouring to prove that we derive no heat from the sun’ 1880.
Born in London 10 Jun 1834, the son of Thomas Sprague (1797-1875), a well-to-do wholesale stationer, and his wife Helen Bond (1799-1889). Recorded as a pupil in lithography in 1851, living with his family in Cheshunt. He featured as a member of the Twickenham Rowing Club in press reports 1866-1867. He married Eleanor Maria Gover (1851-1940), daughter of a barrister, with whom he had several children, 6 Jan 1876 at Norton Fitzwarren, Somerset. Papers relating to an action brought by Sprague in 1874 against his brother William White Sprague (1833-1883), engraver and printer, in NA. Became a masonic Grand Steward in 1879. In 1880, he was fined £3. 6s and costs for physically accosting a young woman in the street (Croydon Times, 22 May 1880). ‘Sprague & Co.’ became a printing firm specialising in photo-lithography, “proprietors of the ‘Ink-Photo’ process”, employing thirty-eight men and eleven boys in 1881. The ‘Ink-Photo’ was advertised as “the only means by which copies be obtained in photo-lithography direct from water colour drawings or photographs with the same facility as from line drawings” (Building News, 7 Apr 1882). The Hampstead News, 2 Aug 1883, reported that his tender of £20 for photo-lithographing 200 copies of “the map in the vestry hall” had been accepted. He died 31 Jul 1885 and was buried at Queens Road Cemetery, Croydon, where a memorial survives. Administration of his personal estate of £11,721 .6s. 11d was granted to his widow 30 Oct 1885.
5 Ave Maria Lane — 1860-1862
2 Racquet Court — 1866-1867
— Chaseleigh, Chepstow Road, Croydon (home) — 1879-1885
22 Martin’s Lane, Cannon Street — 1880-1885
— and Osborne House, Canterbury Road, Forest Hill (home) — 1882-1885
— and 7 Swan Lane — 1885
BM. BNA. Census 1841-1851, 1871-1881. LG. LHD. LMA. NA. Tooley. Wakeman & Bridson.