Spencer, a family which has given several statesmen to the service of their country, was founded by the Hon. John Spencer, youngest son of the third Earl of Sunderland, by Anne, daughter and co-heiress of the great Duke of Marlborough. He inherited much property from his grandmother, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and his only son, JOHN (1734–83), was made Earl Spencer in 1765.—GEORGE JOHN, second Earl (1758–1834), was First Lord of the Admiralty under Pitt's administration (1794–1801), the period of the great naval victories of Camperdown, Cape St Vincent, and the Nile. He retired when Addington became premier, and was famous as a munificent collector of rare books and the first president of the Roxburghe Club. The Spencer Library, dispersed under the hammer in 1881–83, brought £50,581.—JOHN CHARLES, third Earl Spencer, better known under the courtesy title of Lord Althorp, was born in 1782, and educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. He entered parliament in 1804 for Oakhampton, and became a junior Lord of the Treasury when in 1806 his father took office as Secretary of State for the Home Department in the Grenville-Fox ministry. He sat for Northamptonshire from this time till the Reform Bill, and in the Reformed parliament for the southern division of the county. He went out with the Whigs in 1807, and gave steady opposition during the long Tory reign thereafter. On the dissolution of the Wellington cabinet in November 1830 he became Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons in the celebrated Reform ministry of Earl Grey. The Reform Bill was introduced by Lord John Russell, but the task of carrying the bill mainly devolved upon Spencer. In 1833 he brought in and carried the ministerial bill for reforming the Irish Church. In this memorable working session the curious statistician discovered that Spencer, who had, from his post of ministerial leader, naturally been the most frequent speaker, had addressed the House 1026 times, his speeches occupying 387 columns in the then Mirror of Parliament. When the Irish Coercion Bill was under consideration in the cabinet Spencer had opposed the clauses prohibiting public meetings, yet had given way rather than break up the ministry, but when the truth was elicited in debate by Mr O'Connell he resigned. He was considered and described by Earl Grey as his 'right-hand man,' and without his assistance the earl felt himself unable to carry on the government. The administration of Viscount Melbourne succeeded (July 1834), in which Spencer consented to resume his office. In November he was called by the death of his father to the House of Peers, which had the effect of bringing the Melbourne administration to an end. When the attempt of Sir Robert Peel to carry on the government failed Spencer declined to take office again. He devoted his time to agricultural pursuits, became president of the Smithfield Cattle Club, and suggested the formation of the Royal Agricultural Society, of which he was elected president in 1838. He died at his seat, Wiseton Hall, Notts, October 1, 1845, without issue, and was succeeded by his brother. During his political career his simplicity of character and integrity of purpose obtained for him the appellation of 'honest Lord Althorp.' He was very little of an orator, but he had a clear and practical intellect, and his influence over the Reformed House of Commons was supreme. Lord Brougham dedicated to him his work on Natural Theology; and his Dialogues on Instinct are also supposed to be carried on with Spencer, to whose cultivation of philosophy in the midst of his political and agricultural pursuits the author bears friendly testimony. See Memoir by Sir Denis Le Marchant, Bart. (1876), Walter Bagehot's Biographical Studies (1881), and Ernest Myers' Lord Althorp (1890).
—JOHN POYNTZ SPENCER, fifth earl, was born October 27, 1835, and was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. He had sat but a few months in the House of Commons for South Northamptonshire when the death of his father in 1857 sent him to the House of Lords. He was Lord-lieutenant of Ireland from 1868 to 1874, in 1880 became Lord-president of the Council, and during 1882-85 was Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. In the Liberal governments of 1886 and 1892 he was again President of the Council. He embraced Mr Gladstone's Home Rule policy, having during his tenure of office at Dublin Castle come to the conclusion that coercion was a failure.