John Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer
John Poyntz Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer, KG, KP, PC (27 October 1835 – 13 August 1910), known as Viscount Althorp from 1845 to 1857 (and also known as the "Red Earl" because of his distinctive long red beard), was a British Liberal Party politician under, and close friend of, prime minister William Ewart Gladstone. He was twice Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
The Earl Spencer
27 October 1835
Spencer House, London
13 August 1910 (aged 74)
Althorp, Northamptonshire
Charlotte Seymour (m. 1858–1903; her death)
- Frederick Spencer, 4th Earl Spencer
- Georgiana Poyntz
Background and education[edit]
Spencer was the son of Frederick Spencer, 4th Earl Spencer, by his first wife Georgiana, daughter of William Poyntz. The prominent Whig politician John Spencer, 3rd Earl Spencer, was his uncle and Charles Spencer, 6th Earl Spencer, his half-brother. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, from which he graduated in 1857.[1]
Courtier[edit]
Spencer served, for most of the period from 1859 to 1866, in the royal household, as a groom first to Prince Albert and then to the Prince of Wales. In 1876 he hosted Empress Elisabeth of Austria who had come to Northamptonshire for a hunting party. The empress stayed at Easton Neston, which she rented through her sister, ex-queen Maria of the Two Sicilies.