Spring family

[2] The earliest recording of the family is in 1311 in northern England, where Sir Henry Spring was lord of the manor at a place that would become known as Houghton-le-Spring.

[3] The family first came to prominence in the town of Lavenham in Suffolk, where they were important merchants in the cloth and wool trade during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

[2] This was partly facilitated through a series of advantageous marriages to powerful local families, such as the Waldegraves, Jermyns and de Veres.

Despite being relations of the Yorkist George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, the Springs were supporters of the House of Lancaster throughout the Wars of the Roses, reflected by the grant of arms to the family by Henry VI.

[6] Sir John Spring (d.1549) was knighted by Henry VII and aided the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk in suppressing the Lavenham revolt of 1525.

The Conservative politician Lord Risby (b.1946) is the most recent member of the family to represent Suffolk in the British Parliament.

[2] Flying Officer Hector Spring DFC (1915-1978) served with distinction in the Royal Air Force during World War II.

Another descendant, Walter Spring, married a daughter of the Knight of Kerry and was involved in the Irish Confederate Wars, consequently forfeiting much of his land.

This branch was raised to the peerage as Barons Monteagle of Brandon, after the Whig politician Thomas Spring Rice had served as Chancellor of the Exchequer.