L/Cpl 26024 Samuel Stanley Spencer

• Age: 26
• From: Seaforth, Liverpool
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 18th Btn
• D.O.W Sunday 2nd July 1916
• Commemorated at: Daours Cc Ext
  Panel Ref: II.B24

26024 L.Corporal Samuel Stanley SPENCER, 18^th KLR, DOW 02.07.1916.

Samuel Stanley Spencer was born in Seaforth, Liverpool on 02^nd September 1890, and baptised on the 12th October in St Thomas Church, the son of Joseph and Sarah Anne (nee Hinks), in Seaforth. Sarah Anne was Joseph’s first wife and they were married on 14^th July 1880 in Toxteth. Joseph was 21 years old and employed as a railway pointsman and their first home was at 56 Argos Street, Kirkdale.

The 1891 Census finds Joseph a 32 year old railway shunter born in Heywood, Lancashire and Sarah aged 32 and born in Wolverhampton are living with their five children at 21 Bate Street. Their children are listed as; Hannah is 10, Martha is 8, Joseph is 5, Daisy is 3 and Samuel is 7 months old. They also have a lodger in the household; James Harrison a railway platelayer. 

In 1893, Sarah Anne passed away and on 14^th July 1893 Joseph married Jane Phillpotts at St Thomas' Church.

On the 1901 census Samuel S. is aged 10 living at 6 Croxteth Avenue, Litherland. His father Joseph is a 41 year old railway yard foreman, his stepmother Jane is 42 years of age, born in Ross, Herefordshire; Samuel's siblings in teh household are  Joseph H.  is a 15 year old railway porter,  Daisy A. is 13His step siblings are recorded as; Richard E. aged 7 b.Seaforth, Naomi E. is 2 b.Seaforth, Jessie E. 11 months  b.Seaforth.

The 1911 Census shows the family living at 22 Sefton Street, Litherland and Jane by this time has borne Joseph 10 children of whom 9 had survived and 8 of them are living in the family home. Richard E. is now 16 and a railway porter, Naomi E. is 12 and Jessie E. is 10. The new additions are Arthur G. 8, Robert E. 6, Alice 5, Thomas Wm. 2 and Florence G. 1.

Stanley is not shown in the 1911 Census but a crew list for “SS Venetian” in May 1911 shows that he had joined the Merchant Navy and was employed aboard this ship as an Assistant Steward.

Following the outbreak of war, Stanley volunteered and enlisted in the 18^th Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private 26024 and attained the rank of Lance-Corporal.

He sailed to France with his Battalion on 07^th November 1915 and was killed in action during the opening days of the Battle of the Somme. It is highly that Stanley Spencer was one of those wounded on the opening day and who died of his wounds the following day, 02^nd July 1916.

He now rests at Daours Communal Cemetery Extension.

The preparations for the Somme offensive of July 1916 brought a group of casualty clearing stations (the 1st/1st South Midland, 21st, 34th, 45th and Lucknow, section "B") to Daours. The extension to the communal cemetery was opened and the first burials made in Plots I, II, Row A of Plot III and the Indian plot, between June and November 1916. The Allied advance in the spring of 1917 took the hospitals with it, and no further burials were made in the cemetery until April 1918, when the Germans recovered the ground they had lost. From April to the middle of August 1918, the extension was almost a front line cemetery. In August and September 1918, the casualty clearing stations came forward again (the 5th, 37th, 41st, 53rd, 55th and 61st) but in September, the cemetery was closed. There are now 1,231 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in Daours Communal Cemetery Extension. The total includes special memorials to four men of the Chinese labour corps whose graves in White Chateau Cemetery, Cachy, could not be located. The adjoining communal cemetery contains two First World War burials made before the extension was opened. The extension was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. 

His death was reported in the Liverpool Echo on 15th July 1916:

SPENCER – July 2^nd Killed in action Lance/Corporal  - S. Stanley Spencer “Pals” youngest son of Joseph and the late Mrs Spencer of Seaforth.

Also in the Liverpool Echo on 17th July 1916

SPENCER – July 2^nd in his 26^th year, L/Cpl S. S. Spencer (Stan) “Pals” .  Sadly missed by all at 2 Dewlands Road, Seaforth.

Soldiers Effects and Pension to father Joseph

His family paid tribute to him in the Liverpool Daily Post on 05th July 1917

SPENCER - In loving memory of our dear brother Stan, Lance-Corporal S. S. Spencer K.L.R. (Pals), killed in action, July 2, 1916, youngest son of Joseph and the late Mrs Spencer of Seaforth.

Father, in Thy gracious keeping

Leave we now our loved one sleeping.

- Annie and Daisy

Samuel’s younger step brother, Richard Ernest, born in 1894, served from 9^th December 1915 to 20^th March 1919 with the Signal Depot of the Royal Engineers. His older brother, Joseph Henry emigrated to Cairns in Australia before the war started and died there.

We currently have no further information on Samuel Stanley Spencer, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.