The Spencer Family

by Charles Spencer

  The speech was punctuated by huge cheers.

  Despite their personal attacks on him, it was certainly true that Althorp’s enemies were aware of his vital role in the Whig party’s great triumphs. When asked what Althorp’s contribution had been to the passing of the Reform Bill, a senior Tory replied, ‘Oh, it was his damn good temper that did all the mischief.’ But the most fulsome praise for his actions during this crucial stage in British politics came from his leader, Grey, who termed Althorp ‘the leading member of government in the Commons, on whom my whole confidence rested, whom I considered as the right arm of the government, and without whom I felt it was impossible that the government could go on’.

  Althorp was fully aware of his significance to the party’s fortunes, although he found each day in office increasingly agonizing. There were consolations in continuing to wield influence, however, as he involved himself in issues close to his heart. In 1833, he had the great satisfaction of seeing the Abolition of Slavery Bill passed, and he was a strong advocate for another far-reaching change that year, when it was agreed to open up trade with China. The following year witnessed the Poor Law Amendment Act, which he had fought for with enormous vigour, and which greatly helped ‘the moral and physical condition of the poor’.

  Also in 1834, the whole issue of legislation in Ireland was under the spotlight. Lord Althorp made it clear that, if the more severe clauses then in force to control the Irish were renewed, he would feel obliged to resign from the government. When the majority of his cabinet colleagues decided to ignore Althorp’s advice and perpetuate the repressive laws that he so despised, he carried through his threat. Grey resigned with Althorp, and the first Reform government was brought down by the departure of both these key men.

  If Jack had hoped that he would now be free from the burden of ministerial responsibility, he was mistaken. The Tories were unable to form a government of their own, and William IV, against his own wishes, was forced to accept the Whig ministry of Lord Melbourne. Althorp, with no public protest but with huge private reservations, resumed his post as Chancellor of the Exchequer, having been persuaded that a Whig administration could not proceed without him.

  Only his father’s death was able to free Jack from the yoke of public office. It came late in 1834, and at last he now had the escape route out of the Commons into the ‘Hospital for Incurables’ that he had long talked about. He took it with alacrity and with no regrets. Sir Spencer Walpole mourned the passing of Althorp’s career in the cabinet with the following assessment: ‘He was trusted by the House of Commons and the country as no Minister has ever been trusted before, and as, perhaps, no Minister will ever be trusted again.’

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  The same devotion to duty that Jack Althorp showed in his public life was brought to bear in his private obligations as head of the Spencer family. He had long recognized that his parents’ lifestyle, particularly his father’s penchant for the most rare and expensive of books, would leave him with a greatly reduced inheritance. The fabulous wealth that his grandfather had received from Sarah Marlborough’s generosity was now but a memory. There was Althorp, there was Spencer House and there were still several landed estates, but of cash and liquidity there was none; and of mortgages and debts there was a seeming multitude.

  In 1833, trying once again to face up to the consequences of his extravagance, George John had arranged mortgages on his lands of £356,500. There were further bond debts of £17,000. He ear-marked various estates to be sold, but he died before his plans could be carried through.

  How Jack coped with these inherited debts in the 1830s has since become something of a joke among succeeding generations of Spencers. It was admirable that he set about paying off the huge sum, in what he termed ‘the Great Operation’, with such earnestness. The regrettable part lies in his decision to sell off three outlying hamlets, which he thought of no importance to the core of the estate. The hamlets were Battersea, Putney and Wandsworth, and the Spencer share of them was disposed of for a mere £118,000. Within a generation, thanks to the advent of the railway, they had become parts of Greater London, worth millions.

  Spencer House could also have been sold at this time since Jack had no need for anything so ostentatious and expensive in London, being happy with an apartment in Albany, the Piccadilly building that had once been the site of Sunderland House. In 1835 he seriously began to market Spencer House, some of the contents of the London mansion being moved to Althorp in anticipation of the sale, including the Second Earl’s earliest printed books, which were placed in the old man’s former bedroom on the ground floor of Althorp — an action of which the old bibliophile would doubtless have approved. However, despite some fleeting interest from other aristocrats, the sale of Spencer House was not to be. Nobody could be tempted to take on such a large and costly residence in a time of comparative economic weakness, and the property remains in Spencer ownership to this day.

  The snapshots we get of Jack in his middle age are of a man living well within his means, concentrating on his farming, while keeping the family’s two principal residences ticking over. He himself was happiest on his Wiseton farm, in Nottinghamshire, which had been left to him after Esther’s death. Here he built up one of the most successful herds of shorthorn bulls that has ever existed, the Wiseton stock being noted for their huge strength and even temper.

  I have dedicated a room at Althorp to Jack; it is, coincidentally, that same bedroom of his father’s that he appropriated for the Spencer House books. On its walls I have placed two dozen portraits of his favourite bulls — huge beasts, with square bodies and tiny heads — which I found, flaking and battered, in the attics, when I took over at Althorp in 1992. I had the pictures restored, and now they hang together, in simple frames, the overdeveloped forms of the cattle looking quizzically down on the cases of medals that they won for their aristocratic owner at Smithfield shows.

  There is one such picture, tucked behind the door, showing this least pretentious of men, his hands in the pockets of his yeoman’s trousers, his dog Bruce beside him, discussing the merits of a favourite bull with his two land agents, a herdsman looking on. This was where Jack was happiest — in the fields, with people who shared his love of farming, far removed from the House of Commons and from London. He spent so many years in the capital, toiling away at political life, when all he wanted was to be with his animals. At least his final years were spent in the manner designed to give him greatest satisfaction.

  Mrs Burditt, a resident of Church Brampton, a few miles from Althorp, was ninety-three in 1916, when she told my great-grandfather of her memories of ‘Honest Jack Althorp’ in the 1830s. He had, she said, ‘a dread of getting stout’, and she would often see him walking back over Kingsthorpe Mill bridge from Northampton to his home, quite alone, after attending the meeting of the governors of the infirmary and the bench of magistrates. He sometimes spoke to the young girl as he passed. He was generally dressed as a well-to-do farmer and, Mrs Burditt recalled, ‘He was always kind.’

  14. Fourth Son, Fourth Earl

  George John and Lavinia had five sons and two daughters that survived childbirth. A series of stillbirths and miscarriages between 1782, when Jack was born, and 1787, when the second child, Sarah, appeared, had left Jack very much the senior figure in his generation of the Spencer family. Further distance was placed between him and his siblings through the death of the next son, Richard, as an eighteen-month-old toddler in 1791.

  It was just over nine months after Richard’s death that Robert Cavendish Spencer was born at Althorp. He was given his second name as a mark of respect for his godfather, William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire. His bust is in Painters’ Passage at Althorp — the bald head and round face both highly reminiscent of his cousin, Sir Winston Spencer-Churchill, for whom he is often mistaken. In the Library there is a painting of him, in uniform, lying back reading a book, a mixture of chubby baby-facedness and keen intelligence, the unusually relaxed pose in direct contrast to the
formal clothing of the officer-aristocrat.

  He was first educated at Harrow. Then it was decided that he would enter the Navy, a standard career choice for the younger son of a nobleman, but almost inevitable when that nobleman had been First Lord of the Admiralty.

  In 1804 he became a midshipman in the Tigre, and went straight into active service in the Mediterranean, before joining Nelson’s force in pursuit of the combined French and Spanish fleets in the West Indies. He would have been with Nelson at Trafalgar the following year, but two days before the battle the Tigre was one of a handful of ships deployed away from the main body of the British fleet.

  His elder sister, Sarah, recorded the family’s relief at his safety, news of which reached them a full month after Trafalgar had been fought and won:

  I cannot resist writing to you, to tell you how very happy we all are at the great blessing the Almighty has conferred on us — I mean the certainty of our dear Bob’s safety — notwithstanding this great and glorious battle having happened so near him ... What hurt ... all of us most deeply, is the death of Lord Nelson. How is it ever to be repaired? I really almost dread Bob’s next letter; he will be so very unhappy at the loss of so excellent a commander; he quite adored him ...

  Over the next five years, he was involved in various dangerous engagements, including two attacks on Rosetta in 1807, after which his immediate commanding officer, Sir John Duckworth, gave Lavinia Spencer ‘a delightful account of Bob’s character, of his popularity with everybody, and of the extreme fondness of the Captain for him, as well as of his remarkable diligence, activity, and attention to his duty, as was really pleasanter almost than a letter would have been’.

  The British fleet’s primary role after Trafalgar was the blockading of France’s sea ports, stopping supplies being brought in from overseas, but also ready to strike if the French Navy made the mistake of sailing too far from shore, and fall prey to its superior force. Between 1807 and 1809, the Tigre, with Bob still on board, was detailed to watch the port of Toulon.

  At the end of 1809, the British heard that the French might come out to fight in Rosas Bay. The Tigre captain, who always had his son, Ben, with him on the ship, took Bob aside, and said:

  Well, I do think these people will at last put to sea, and then of course we shall have an action: and, if anything should happen to me in it, Spencer, I shall leave you my little boy here as a legacy; he will want protection and care, and I know you will have the will, and I hope you will have the power to give him both, and to bring him forward in the profession.

  However, it was Bob’s life that was to be the more endangered in the ensuing clash. He was in the Tigre’s launch, under the command of a Lieutenant Boxer, which was able to penetrate under the boarding nets that the French had deployed to keep the British away. Believing that the Royal Navy would never be foolhardy enough to attempt such a manoeuvre so near to their gun batteries, the French had neglected to tie the nets down properly. The result of the British attack was total success: all the vessels in the enemy convoy were destroyed or captured.

  Promotion for Bob followed the next year, and by October 1812 he had his first command — the brig Pelorus. Within three months, he was raised to the rank of commander and stationed in the fleet off Marseilles. At his suggestion, a daring attack was made on gun emplacements at Cassis, a small port between Marseilles and Toulon.

  While the Napoleonic Wars were still raging, Britain found herself simultaneously at odds with the United States. Bob is the only Spencer to date to have been involved in direct armed conflict with America. His sphere of operations was in, and off the coast of, Florida and Louisiana. His ship was part of a small force under Captain the Hon. W. H. Percy which attacked the West Florida stronghold of Fort Bowyer, near Mobile, in September 1814.

  Later in the same year Bob was chosen by Sir Alexander Cochrane to land near New Orleans. With his knowledge of French and Spanish, he was instructed to find out what he could about Louisiana, and to secure guides and pilots for the proposed British expeditionary force. However, he was very nearly captured by General Jackson’s cavalry, he and his colleague only just getting away in their boat before the enemy arrived at their secret hiding place.

  After several further adventures for Bob on American soil, the campaign petered out in 1815. Bob was then selected to deal with the Native Americans who had assisted the British in the fighting. He saw that they dispersed peacefully, with all claims against the British settled, as he dismissed them from active service. A later naval report said, ‘This was arranged to the entire satisfaction of His Majesty’s Government, notwithstanding the prejudices and wild habits of the Indians, amongst whom Captain Spencer lived encamped at Prospect Bluff, far up the Apalachicola river, for more than a month.’

  The strangest event recorded about Bob’s life is his supposed death. In 1820, the Spencers were overcome by grief on being told that Bob had been killed in a duel. The story was that he had ordered his officers not to work the men so hard. Apparently this had led to a quarrel with the first lieutenant, McDonald. Then, the family was told, Bob had ordered all the men down to the main deck guns, leaving himself and McDonald alone. At this point Bob was supposed to have drawn his sword and told McDonald to defend himself. McDonald was reported initially to have refused, pointing out that he was a superior swordsman to his captain, since he had practised so much while a prisoner of war in France. The first lieutenant said, so the report went, that he would fight Spencer, if he insisted, but that the duel would have to take place on shore.

  The story then became even more unlikely, Bob reputedly calling McDonald ‘a damned rascal’, and striking him with the flat of his sword. There was a tussle, in which Bob was accidentally run through by the first lieutenant. It was all untrue, but it was widely reported, a naval bulletin in Brazil noting, ‘This melancholy affair has thrown a great gloom over the countenances of all naval characters at Rio.’

  When the Spencer family learned that the story was just a mysterious invention, they shared their relief with the people of the villages surrounding Althorp, organizing for the poor to be given extra provisions, and for oxen to be roasted on spits for everyone to eat.

  The Royal Navy’s wide sphere of duties at this time is demonstrated by Bob’s subsequent postings: Tunisia, South America and Algeria. In the South American campaign, Bob, ever interested in scientific progress, just as his father was, paid out of his own pocket for the installation of Congreve’s Lights on his frigate, the Owen Glendower; novel navigation aides that were soon to be widely adopted by the fleet.

  The Algerian situation that he encountered was an unusually delicate one. In 1824, the bey of Algiers had provoked the British by forcing an entry into the house of their consul, and kidnapping two of his servants, claiming they were from an enemy tribe. Bob was dispatched to tell the bey that this was an unacceptable way to treat His Majesty’s representative, his frigate escorted by a heavy-hitting brig. He arrived to find a much more complicated situation than he had been led to expect: there were two Spanish ships in the harbour, which had just been captured, their crews about to be sold into slavery.

  The bey was a signatory to an agreement which stated that he would not enslave Christians. When Robert reminded him of this and insisted that the Spaniards be released, the bey refused. Worried about the consul’s safety, Bob asked him and his family to board his ship. As they were all departing, the bey’s warship that had captured the Spanish made a break for the open seas. Bob called on it to surrender, but it sailed on until he opened fire, capturing it with no English losses. Inside were seventeen of the Spaniards, now saved by Bob from a life of slavery.

  From 1826, his active service days were mixed with the desk duties that increasingly high rank necessitated. When his frigate, the Naiad, was paid off at Portsmouth in the autumn of that year, the gunnery and the discipline on the ship were said by the commanding officer ‘never to have been exceeded’. Bob now became private secretary to the Lord High Admi
ral, who was later to become King William IV, until 1828, being knighted at the conclusion of his term of office.

  It is clear that his time in this position was noted for its authoritarianism, his obituarist later trying to forgive Bob his disciplinarian excesses:

  If by some it has been thought that, whilst in this arduous situation, Sir Robert Spencer drew the strings of authority too tight, it must be recollected that to such an accusation all public officers are liable; and, where so much real worth is acknowledged, a little occasional bluntness and shortness of manner, unfortunately incident to the profession of a seaman and the habits of command, may surely be excused.

  An intensely religious man, a trait common to all the Spencer brothers of his generation, Bob greatly impressed the future King with the way in which he led a church service on board the Royal Yacht, while briefly commanding it in 1828. This, though, was the last act of any note that he performed in British waters.

  Later in the same year he was sent back to the Mediterranean fleet, in command of the frigate Madagascar. By now it was evident that Jack was unlikely ever to remarry, and that Bob was effectively heir to the Spencer earldom and estates. On Jack’s appointment to the cabinet in 1830, Bob was selected to represent the Royal Navy at the Ordnance Board, as surveyor-general. He was instructed to return home to assume this new responsibility. However, he was struck down with ‘an inflammation of the bowels’ in Alexandria, and died two days later. The Madagascar sailed on to Malta, where the life of the Honourable Sir Robert Cavendish Spencer is commemorated by a monument erected by the officers, seamen and marines of his final command on the Coradino Heights, above the harbour at Valletta.

  A decade after the false alarm of Bob’s death in a duel, the Spencer family had to deal with the reality of the demise of a man who was not only the next head of the family but one (George John still being alive), but who was also much loved and respected by them all. His younger brother, George, later recalled: