Author: Spencer, Sarah Emma
Biography:
SPENCER, Sarah Emma (b 1760: findmypast.com)
Mrs. Spencer identifies herself clearly on the title-page of her first collection of occasional verse as “the late Miss Jackson, from Manchester.” That volume, Poetic Trifles, had a respectable though not showy subscription list; she offered it for sale from her address at 2 Kennington Place, London. The second, much later book, Commemorative Feelings (1812), which appeared anonymously, shows that she had continued turning to verse at meaningful moments in her life, but it does not reveal much about her family or her social circle. One poem laments the death in action of her brother, a Lieutenant-Colonel. Some poems celebrate books and writers (Robert Burns and Charlotte Smith, qq.v., for example) and other leisure pursuits such as excursions to the theatre or to beauty spots in England. One is entitled “Lines wound around the Pole of a Tent in my Garden.” The preface declares her “unlearned and wholly uninstructed in poetic rules.” She published besides at least one novel, The Memoirs of the Miss Holmsbys (1788), which was respectfully reviewed. She was most probably the Sarah Jackson baptised as a Presbyterian non-conformist on 23 Apr. 1760 in Manchester; the register does not give the names of her parents. When she married on 2 Aug. 1777 she was still a minor and her mother Margaret Jackson, a widow, signed her consent to the match. The groom was John Spencer, a widower and a soldier: his occupation is given as artillery sergeant. Her first collection includes a poignant poem on their dead infant, Arabella; it is not clear whether there were other children. Nor is it clear how “John Spencer” became “Walker Spencer” and she “Mrs. Walker Spencer.” (Some library catalogues have “Walter.”) No reliable dates of death have been found for them. It is possible that she was the Sarah Spencer, aged 80, living in Camberwell with independent means at the time of the 1841 census, but that woman gave Surrey as her birth county. (findmypast.com 20 Nov. 2024; ancestry.com 20 Nov. 2024; EN1)
Other Names:
- Mrs. Spencer
- Mrs. Walker Spencer