While serving as chaplain to the Marquess of Cholmondeley, he edited A Nika-English Dictionary, on the subject of a Mijikenda language, and a translation of the Gospel of Luke, in Swahili.

[4][5][6][nb 2] However Sparshott's parental background was financially insecure, and his work as a cooper may have partially paid for his training.

His father was Henry Bartlett Sparshott,[5][7][nb 3] a licensed victualler, cooper, basket-maker and brush salesman, of Jewry Street, Winchester.

[16][17][nb 7] His younger brother William assisted his father in the Anchor pub in East Tisted, and afterwards in the hardware shop.

[20] Margaret McArthur Sparshott died on 14 July 1885, aged 48, after suffering "acute mania" for twelve days, and then exhaustion.

[21] In 1930 a new nurses' home in Manchester was named Sparshott House in her memory,[nb 10] and there is a blue plaque on the hospital in her honour.

[25] According to the 1901 Census, Sparshott, his wife Laura, four of their children, one child from his first marriage (William Romaine, a ledger clerk), and three servants were living at 18 Queen's Road, South Wimbledon, Surrey.

[26] By 1911, Sparshott, his second wife, and five of the eight surviving children of that marriage were living at 9 Grosvenor Hill, Eureka, Wimbledon, London.

[23] In 1920, having completed his service at Weybread Church, Sparshott retired to Hastings, where in 1921 he was recorded living with his wife Laura, and two of their daughters, Clarrie a schoolteacher, and Rosalie, still at school.

A few days before his death, he "took part in the meetings at the Priory-Street Institute in connection with the world's Evangelical Alliance Week of Prayer".

His first placement, between 7 September 1867 and 2 June 1872, was in Kisuldini in the Seychelles (then part of Mauritius) and elsewhere in East Africa,[25][28][14] including Zanzibar.

[36] Between 1890 and 1891, he was temporary curate of St Mary's Church, Luddenden, Halifax, covering the illness of its vicar, Rev.

In November 1890 he spoke strongly at a Church Association meeting, saying that "the Evangelical party ... were in very great danger of the bishops" of the Oxford Movement.

[40] On 1 November of the same year, his lecture in Northampton was announced as The Mass, Unscriptural, Non-Catholic and Opposed to the Teaching of the Church of England.

[44] In the same vein, in 1901 in Staines, he gave a lecture titled, Ritualism, the Highway to Rome, saying that the Bible, not ribbons on clerical robes, was the source for his beliefs.