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{{Short description|British peer and the father of Diana, Princess of Wales (1924–1992)}}{{EngvarB|date=July 2020}}{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}

factoids

| image = John Spencer, Viscount Althorp in 1967.jpg| caption = Spencer in 1967192424|df=yes}}| birth_place = Bayswater, Paddington, London, England| birth_name = Edward John Spencer1992291df=yes}}| death_place = St John’s Wood, London, England| resting_place = Ashes interred in the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Great Brington| spouse = {{Ubl }}| children = {hide}Ubl {edih}| parents = {hide}Ubl {edih}| education = {hide}Ubl {edih}}}Edward John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer, {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|LVO}} (24 January 1924{{Snd}}29 March 1992), styled Viscount Althorp until June 1975, was a British nobleman, military officer, and courtier. He was the father of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the maternal grandfather of William, Prince of Wales, and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex.

Early life, education and military career

Lord Spencer was born Edward John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, the only son and younger child of Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer, and his wife the former Lady Cynthia Hamilton, second daughter of the 3rd Duke of Abercorn. He was born on 24 January 1924 in their family home at 24 Sussex Square, Bayswater, London.NEWS, 30 March 1992, The 8th Earl Spencer, 68, Dies; Father of the Princess of Wales, The New York Times,www.nytimes.com/1992/03/30/world/the-8th-earl-spencer-68-dies-father-of-the-princess-of-wales.html, 29 May 2013, His godfather was the future King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom. He was educated at Eton, the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and the Royal Agricultural College. Popularly known to his family and friends as Johnnie Althorp, he served as a captain in the Royal Scots Greys from 1944 to 1945,WEB, 30 March 1992, The 8th Earl Spencer Dies,www.cwashingtonpost.com/archive/local/1992/03/30/the-8th-earl-spencer-dies/ecee3f61-444f-4ca5-8d21-293f6b063026/, 7 December 2020, The Washington Post, and was Mentioned in Dispatches. He landed in France the day after D-Day. He led a British Army unit in an operation to liberate two French towns, La Neuve-Lyre and La Vieille-Lyre.NEWS, Puente, Maria, 4 September 2019, Princess Diana’s dad was WWII hero, her brother Charles Spencer reveals in ‘Today’ sitdown, USA Today,usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2019/09/04/dianas-dad-william-harry-granddad-wwii-hero-says-her-brother/2200588001/, 6 November 2019, NEWS, Spencer, Charles, 4 September 2019, Charles Spencer, Princess Diana’s brother, shares discovery of father’s WWII heroism, Today,www.today.com/news/charles-spencer-princess-diana-s-brother-travels-normandy-uncover-father-t161710, 6 November 2019, WEB, Winston, George, 24 September 2019, Father of Princess Diana Was Hero Who Liberated Two Towns in WWII,www.warhistoryonline.com/news/princess-diana.html, 6 November 2019, warhistoryonline.com, From 1947 to 1950, he served as Aide-de-Camp to His Excellency Lieutenant-General Sir Willoughby Norrie, then Governor of South Australia.He was engaged to 1950’s debutante of the year, Lady Anne Coke (later Anne Tennant, Baroness Glenconner, lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret).NEWS, 7 December 2019, Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner review – a bestselling glimpse of the royals, en, The Guardian,www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/07/lady-in-waiting-by-anne-glenconner-review-a-glimpse-of-real-life-behind-the-crown, 17 April 2021, His father objected to the match on the grounds of “mad blood”, a reference to the institutionalised relatives of the queen, and the engagement was broken off. Much later, the director of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute thought that a genetic disease in the Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis family may have killed male members of the family in early childhood and caused learning disabilities in females.“The History of the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110911094710www.mcri.edu.au/pages/our-people/mcri-history.asp|date=11 September 2011}}” website, retrieved 14 November 2011.MAGAZINE, Coke, Hope, 19 November 2020, Behind The Crown: The true story of the Queen’s cousins, Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon,www.tatler.com/article/real-story-nerissa-and-katherine-bowes-lyon-the-queens-cousins-the-crown-season-4, Tatler, 15 March 2021, “Bowes-Lyon Retardation Gene May Have Killed Males‎”, The Age, 9 April 1987.Spencer held the offices of County Councillor for Northamptonshire (1952), High Sheriff of Northamptonshire (1959) and Justice of the Peace for Norfolk (1970). He served as equerry to King George VI (1950–52) and to Queen Elizabeth II (1952–54),WEB, Diana, Princess of Wales biography,www.royal.gov.uk/output/page155.asp, dead,www.royal.gov.uk/output/page155.asp," title="web.archive.org/web/20140525233322www.royal.gov.uk/output/page155.asp,">web.archive.org/web/20140525233322www.royal.gov.uk/output/page155.asp, 25 May 2014, The official website of the British Monarchy, Earl Spencer was Equerry to George VI from 1950 to 1952, and to The Queen from 1952 to 1954., and was invested as a Member (fourth class) of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 1954.{{London Gazette| issue = 40181| date = 25 May 1954| page = 3072}} Prior to 1984, the grades of Lieutenant and Member were classified as Members (fourth class) and Members (fifth class), respectively, but both with the post-nominals MVO. He was known by the courtesy title Viscount Althorp until 1975 when he became the 8th Earl Spencer upon his father’s death.NEWS, Princess Diana: The Earl’s daughter, born to life of privilege, CNN,edition.cnn.com/fyi/school.tools/profiles/princess.diana/student.storypage.html, 30 May 2013, 4 March 2016,edition.cnn.com/fyi/school.tools/profiles/princess.diana/student.storypage.html," title="web.archive.org/web/20160304135816edition.cnn.com/fyi/school.tools/profiles/princess.diana/student.storypage.html,">web.archive.org/web/20160304135816edition.cnn.com/fyi/school.tools/profiles/princess.diana/student.storypage.html, dead, He was Member of the House of Lords from 9 June 1975 (the day his father died and he inherited the peerage) until his own death.

Family life

On 1 June 1954 Spencer and Hon. Frances Ruth Roche, the younger daughter of the 4th Baron Fermoy, were married in Westminster Abbey by Percy Herbert, Bishop of Norwich. Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the royal family attended the wedding ceremony.NEWS, 1 June 1954, Queen heads lists guests at wedding, The Gazette, Montreal,news.google.com/newspapers?id=PYEtAAAAIBAJ&pg=5838,281319&dq=frances+ruth+roche&hl=en, 21 July 2013, They had five children:

• Lady Elizabeth Sarah Lavinia Spencer (born 19 March 1955), goddaughter of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, married Neil Edmund McCorquodale on 17 May 1980 and had issue
• Lady Cynthia Jane Spencer (born 11 February 1957), goddaughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, married Robert Fellowes, Baron Fellowes, on 20 April 1978 and had issue
• Hon. John Spencer (12 January 1960 – 12 January 1960), died within ten hours of his birth
• Lady Diana Frances Spencer (1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), married to Charles, Prince of Wales (later Charles III), from 1981 to 1996 and had issue
• Charles Edward Maurice Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer (born 20 May 1964), godson of Queen Elizabeth II, married first to Victoria Lockwood from 1989 to 1997 and had issue, married second to Caroline Hutton from 2001 to 2007 and had issue, and married third to Karen Gordon on 18 June 2011 and had issue

According to author Penny Junor “Johnny could be violent, and [Frances] felt she and her children would be safer out of the home”.WEB,www.insider.com/princess-diana-father-slap-her-mother-cnn-doc-2021-10, Princess Diana once witnessed her father ‘slap’ her mother during the royal’s tumultuous childhood, CNN doc details, Insider, Rebecca, Cohen, 8 October 2021, 9 January 2023, Their daughter Diana also recalled “seeing my father slap my mother across the face and I was hiding behind the door and she was crying”.The marriage was not a happy one and, in 1967, Frances left John to be with Peter Shand Kydd, an heir to a wallpaper fortune in Australia, whom she had met the year before. Frances lived with their two youngest children, Diana and Charles, in London during the separation in 1967, but during that year’s Christmas holidays, Viscount Althorp refused to let his children return to London with their mother.BOOK, Brown, Tina, Tina Brown, 2007, The Diana Chronicles, Doubleday, London; New York, 978-0-385-51708-9,archive.org/details/dianachronicles00brow_0, 40–41, John and Frances Spencer were divorced in 1969. Immediately thereafter, Frances married Peter Shand Kydd, while John was granted custody of their children by the courts after his former mother-in-law, Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy, testified against her own daughter.The Times (London), Thursday, 8 July 1993; p. 4 col. D and p. 19 col. A In 1976, Lord Spencer married Raine McCorquodale, the former wife of the 9th Earl of Dartmouth and daughter of Captain Alexander McCorquodale, a British Army officer, and the romantic novelist Dame Barbara Cartland.In 1978, Spencer suffered a severe stroke, from which, at one stage, he was not expected to recover, and which kept him in hospital for eight months. Shortly before his death, he was hospitalised for pneumonia.WEB, 30 March 1992, Edward John Spencer; Earl Was Princess Diana’s Father,www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-03-30-mn-33-story.html, 7 December 2020, Los Angeles Times, He died of a heart attack in 1992, and was succeeded by his only surviving son Charles.NEWS, 30 March 1992, Edward John Spencer; Earl Was Princess Diana’s Father, Times Wire Services, London,articles.latimes.com/1992-03-30/news/mn-33_1_edward-john-spencer, 29 May 2013, His funeral was held at the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Great Brington, and his ashes were interred in the family vault beneath the Spencer chapel.NEWS,www.newspapers.com/article/the-kokomo-tribune-princess-dianas-fath/7306906/, Princess Diana’s father, 68, dead of heart attack, Associated Press, 30 March 1992, 21 April 2024,

Coat of arms

factoids

Ancestry

{{Ahnentafelalign=center |ref=|boxstyle_1=background-color: #fcc;|boxstyle_2=background-color: #fb9;|boxstyle_3=background-color: #ffc;|boxstyle_4=background-color: #bfc;|1= 1. John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer|2= 2. Albert Spencer, 7th Earl SpencerCynthia Spencer, Countess Spencer>Lady Cynthia Elinor Beatrix Hamilton|4= 4. Charles Spencer, 6th Earl Spencer|5= 5. The Honourable Margaret Baring|6= 6. James Hamilton, 3rd Duke of AbercornRosalind Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn>Lady Rosalind Cecilia Caroline Bingham|8= 8. Frederick Spencer, 4th Earl Spencer|9= 9. Adelaide Horatia Seymour|10= 10. Edward Baring, 1st Baron Revelstoke|11= 11. Louisa Emily Charlotte Bulteel|12= 12. James Hamilton, 2nd Duke of AbercornMary Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn>Lady Mary Anna Curzon-Howe|14= 14. George Bingham, 4th Earl of Lucan|15= 15. Lady Cecilia Catherine Gordon-Lennox}}

References

{{Reflist}}

External links

• {{Hansard-contribs|mr-edward-spencer|John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer}}
• {{NPG name|name=Edward John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer}}

{{Diana, Princess of Wales}}{{Authority control}}