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 and was knighted on 24 Nov. In September 1828 he was appointed to command the Madagascar, again in the Mediterranean, where he died, off Alexandria, on 4 Nov. 1830. He had just been recalled to England on appointment as surveyor-general of the ordnance. During these years of peace service, and especially in the Naiad, Spencer acquired a reputation in the service as a first-rate gunnery officer and disciplinarian. When the Naiad paid off, she was spoken of as the perfection of a man-of-war. He was unmarried.

His younger brother, fourth  (1798–1857), born on 14 April 1798, entered the navy in 1811, and was promoted to the rank of captain on 26 Aug. 1822. In 1831 he was M.P. for Worcestershire, and afterwards for Midhurst. On the death of his eldest brother, he succeeded as fourth Earl Spencer, 1 Oct. 1845; from 1846 to 1848 he was lord chamberlain of the queen's household; was made a K.G. on 23 March 1849; in 1854 was appointed lord steward, and died a vice-admiral on the retired list on 27 Dec. 1857, when he was succeeded by his eldest son, the present Earl Spencer, K.G.



SPENCER, THOMAS (1791–1811), independent divine, second son of a worsted-weaver, was born at Hertford on 21 Jan. 1791. He lost his mother at the age of five. He had to leave school and help his father in his business when thirteen, but had already learnt the rudiments of Latin. Some eighteen months later he was apprenticed for a short time to a glover in the Poultry, London. While here he was introduced to Thomas Wilson, treasurer of the Hoxton Dissenters' Training College for Ministers. He was admitted there in January 1807, after a year's preparation at Harwich, during which he studied Hebrew, and made an abridgment of Parkhurst's ‘Hebrew Lexicon.’ In June 1807 he first preached in public at Collier's End, near Hertford, being then only sixteen. The sermon excited so much attention that he was invited to preach in the neighbouring villages and at Hertford. When barely seventeen he was allowed to appear in the pulpit at Hoxton by the entreaties of the people, though it was contrary to a standing order of the institution. He soon became a popular preacher in the neighbourhood of London, and in December 1808 preached at Lady Huntingdon's chapel at Brighton. On 10 Jan. 1809 he addressed ‘an immense congregation’ from Rowland Hill's pulpit in Surrey Chapel. Having visited Liverpool in the summer of 1810, he on 26 Sept. accepted an offer of the pastorate of Newington chapel there. He entered on his duties at Liverpool in February 1811, and on 27 June was ordained in the chapel in Byrom Street. His qualifications as a preacher included a melodious voice, a tenacious memory, and a fluent delivery. He at first preached from sixty-five to seventy-five minutes, but afterwards, under medical advice, limited his discourses to three-quarters of an hour. So great was his popularity that a new chapel, with accommodation for two thousand people, had to be built for him. The foundation-stone was laid on 15 April. But his promising career was prematurely closed. He was drowned while bathing near the Herculaneum Potteries on 5 Aug. 1811, and was buried on the 13th at Liverpool. Many funeral sermons and elegies were published. An elegy by James Montgomery was appended to the ‘Memoirs’ of Spencer by his successor at Liverpool, Thomas Raffles.

A portrait, engraved by Scriven from a miniature taken in 1810 by N. Branwhite, is prefixed to Raffles's ‘Memoirs,’ and an engraving, by Blood, accompanies four ‘Poems’ (1811) on his death by Ellen Robinson. They represent a youth of delicate appearance with deep-set eyes.

‘Twenty-one Sermons’ by Spencer were published in a duodecimo volume by the Religious Tract Society in 1829, an octavo edition following in 1830. An American edition (18mo), with introduction by Alfred S. Patton, appeared in 1856. A volume of tracts by Spencer also appeared in 1853.



SPENCER, THOMAS (1796–1853), writer on social subjects, son of Matthew Spencer (1762–1827), was born on 14 Oct. 1796, at Derby, where his father kept a large school. [q. v.] was his brother. For some time he taught at Quorn school, near Derby, and in October 1816 entered St. John's College, Cambridge.