Private Samuel Spence K.i.A. 24th August, 1901 …. another story from Tony Goulding

This memorial stone marks the grave of James Duncan Spence and his wife Jenefer (née Naylor) and includes a dedication to their son Samuel who was killed in action at  Rooikopje, South Africa on the 24th August, 1901 during the 2nd Boer War. 

It is located in Manchester’s Southern Cemetery, Non-conformist section, Plot D 710. 

The Spence family came to South Manchester from Dublin during the first decade of the 20th century, although James Duncan was born in Dumfries, Scotland and his wife hailed from Lyme Regis, Dorset. They were married on the 17th January, 1872 at the district church of Ballybunion in the parish of Killiheney, Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland. Samuel was born on the 23rd July, 1883 at 7, Lower Sackville Street, Dublin. (1)

When the 1901 census was taken on the 31st March, Samuel had already landed in South Africa as part of the Imperial Yeomanry, a force drawn from all parts of the British Empire to combat the rebellion of the Boer Republics. He had left his family home at 124, Cowper Road, Rathmines, Dublin to enlist on the 11th February and, lying about his age to do so, he joined, according to his attestation documents, the 13th battalion of that force.  The record of his death however, includes a reference to him belonging to the 74 (Dublin) company, 8th battalion, Imperial Yeomanry. Samuel left behind in Ireland his father James Duncan, recorded on the census return as a “printseller”, his mother Jenefer, an older brother, William Naylor, who was a picture dealer and six unmarried sisters. (2)

Shortly after James Duncan and Jenefer Spence re-located to Didsbury with their remaining sons and three of their youngest daughters (3), James Duncan died on the 21st May, 1909 at 5, Lansdowne Road, West Didsbury, Manchester. He had suffered with blindness from before the 1901 census which recorded him as “blind”. Jenefer Spence survived her husband by more than 17 years, dying on 2nd November, 1926.

I had expected that this would conclude the story of this grave. However, further investigation revealed that two other people, not recorded on the headstone, were also interred in it viz. Miss Anne Jane Cantley on the 17th April, 1937 and Henry Parnell Heney on the 1st October, 1942. 

The family connection of the second of these interments was straightforward, he was the husband of Stella Edith Spence, the second youngest daughter of James Duncan and Jenefer

Christ Church, West Didsbury.

The couple had married on the 12th February, 1923 at Christ Church, West Didsbury and in the 1939 register are shown living at 95, Atwood, Didsbury, Manchester. 

Living with them was Stella Edith’s older unmarried sister, Jenefer, who appropriately perhaps considering the fate of her brother, worked for The League of Nations as a confidential secretary in their offices at 53, Barton Arcade, Manchester.  Mr. Heney, who was a sales representative, latterly in the pharmaceutical industry, died, a week shy of his 56th birthday on the 26th September, 1942. He left an estate of £1,140-14s-7d. (equivalent today to £37,535).

Despite there being no shortage of biographical detail available concerning Anne Jane Cantley’s, finding her connection to the Spence family proved to be problematic and at present still remains a mystery. 

Grafton Street, Dublin circa 1870

Anne Jane was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1863, her parents were Joseph Cantley, who was a hosier and glover of 79, Grafton Street, Dublin and Marianne (née Boon).

 Of her earlier life in Ireland little has shown up in the records; perhaps as she was the first-born daughter, she remained single in order to take care of h.er parents in their old age. 

By 1911 she had moved to England and is recorded in that year’s census return residing with her brother Joseph, a surgeon, at 398, Great Cheetham Street East, Broughton, Salford, Lancashire. 

Her nephew, Joseph Donaldson, was recorded as newly born; he went on to have a distinguished career in Law. (4) 

Anne Jane Cantley later moved to Kensington, London where the 1921 census shows her as the manageress of a large up-market boarding house at 44-46, Longridge Road, Earls Court. Later, she briefly owned another boarding house a short distance away at 28, Nevern Square. 

Joseph Cantley’s shop

This was, apparently a joint venture with Eduard Gustaaf de Lange which was “dissolved by mutual consent” from the 31st December, 1927 as reported in the London Gazette on the 7th February, 1928. Sometime after this Anne Jane returned to live, with her brother’s widow and her children at 43, Brooklands Road, Prestwich, Manchester where she died on Tuesday the 13th April, 1937, aged 74. 

Pictures: - Headstone of the Spence family grave from the collection of Tony Goulding

Christ Church, West Didsbury courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Archives, and Information, http://manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

79, Grafton Street, Joseph Cantley’s hosier and glover shop, this, also, was home to the Dublin School of Photography and the Studio of Frederick Holland Mares, National Library of Ireland on The Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:79_Grafton_Street..._(8248610379). 

Notes: -

1) Sackville Street and its extension towards the River Liffey, Lower Sackville Street, was renamed O’Connell Street, in 1924, by the newly established Irish Free State government with one of its earliest actions.

2) Samuel did have two other siblings an older sister, Margaret Anne, who had recently married on the 27th July, 1899, and a younger brother, Albert Harley, born on the 4th December, 1886 who was for some reason absent from the census return of 1901. Albert Harley later emigrated to the United States from the family home in Manchester in 1907.

3) Stella Edith, the second youngest child, remained behind in Dublin for the time being.

4) Sir Joseph Donaldson Cantley O.B.E. became a High Court Judge. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and The University of Manchester. In his legal career he was the lead prosecutor in the final capital murder case prior to the abolition of the death penalty when the conviction of Gwynne Evans and Peter Allen for the murder of John Alan West led to their executions on the 13th August, 1964 at Manchester’s Strangeways and Liverpool’s Walton Prisons, respectively. Later as a judge Mr. Cantley presided over the sensational conspiracy and incitement to murder trial of the former leader of the Liberal Party, Jeremy Thorpe. His reputation and legacy were to a degree sullied by his summing-up in this case which was deemed by many to have been too skewed in favour of the defence following the accused acquittal.