© 2016 David E. Spencer
I feel that I can only reliably go back a further two generations beyond John Spencer, husband of Jane Hartley and mother of Ellen Spencer. On this basis my most remote ancestor on this line is also called John Spencer (1731 - 1802), farmer of Colne Edge. This is the area of high ground above the eastern part of Red Lane about 1 mile north of the present day centre of Colne.
John married twice and had children from both marriages. His grandson John, the starting point for this page was a child of the first marriage.
John's first wife was Elizabeth Varley (1734-72) whom he married in 1754 at St. Bartholomew's Church in Colne. There were four children of this marriage.
John and Elizabeth's eldest child was John born 1757. He married Betty Judson with whom he had seven children.
The second child of John and Elizabeth was Betty born in 1760.
The third child of John and his first wife was daughter Tibby born in 1762 and who died in 1779.
The fourth child of John and Elizabeth was my 4x great grandfather Robert who was born in 1765. Like his father before him he was a farmer of Colne Edge with shoemaking being an additional source of income. In 1790 he married Ellen Varley at St. Bartholomew's Church in Colne. They had eleven children listed further down this page. Robert died in 1832. Ellen had died in 1811.
John's second marriage
John's second wife was called Mary Windle born 1747. Their marriage in 1777 warranted a comment in the diary in the diary of Elizabeth Shackleton, the local lady who recorded all kinds of detail about the goings on in the Colne of the day. My own source for this is Peter Wightman's book "Bonnie Colne" which includes extracts from the diary.
John and Mary had seven children. The first three were born at Colne Edge whilst the last four were born nearby at Holt House. The children were called Jenny(1778), Joseph (1779-85), Mary (1781), Judith (1783), William (1785), Elizabeth (1787-7) and Edmund (1789) who married Nancy Hindle with whom he had three children.
The children of Robert Spencer and Ellen (nee Varley)
The children were Elizabeth (1791), Edmund (1793 - 1802), Mary (1795), Ellen (1797), John (1799), Robert (1801), Martha (1805), James (1805), Catharine (1807), Nancy (1809) and Edmund (1811-11). Only Edmund is recorded as a child burial so hopefully the others survived to adulthood.