BORN HULL 1893. SON OF FREDERICK W SPINK (HULL SOLICITOR) & FLORENCE E SPINK. HDM 5/618.
Hull Pal Memorials write: Born in 1893, the eldest son of Frederick and Florence Spink of Bridlington. Cecil attended Bridlington Grammar School and went on to study at Cambridge achieving a BA and LL.B. He was employed as an Articled Solicitor in his father’s Law Practice before the war, but was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Commercials’, 1st Hull Pals.
He was killed during the 4th June 1916 bombardment of the front line trenches east of Engelbelmer. Cecil is buried at Bertrancourt Military Cemetery, and his name appears on both the Bridlington War Memorial and the Priory Church Memorial. He was 24 years old.
Cecil was alongside Lieutenant Palmer and was killed by the same shell, but where Palmer was buried alive and suffocated to death, Cecil was killed instantly being blown to pieces in the small hours of an early summer morning.
To make matters worse, Cecil’s younger brother Kenneth was there and saw it all. He too was serving with the 10th and was stood just a few feet away from his brother when the shell landed. Kenneth survived the war, but what nightmares he must have endured.
