William Augustus Spencer

[Claude Roulet]

Jason D. Tiller wrote : >>A good friend of mine who lives outside of Detroit, USA is the great nephew of the Spencer's<<

By the end of May I set you a private mail asking you to get in touch with your friend and to ask him if he would like to be connected with me. May be you didn't receive this message. That's why I send you now a public message. Thank you.

 

[Jason D. Tiller]

Hello Claude,

Yes, I received it. Sorry I haven't replied, but I will contact you soon.

 

[Martin Williams]

This makes for fascinating reading...I've previously known very little about the Spencers.

They seem to have lived well and moved in illustrious circles. Am I correct in thinking that Die Dreilinden, the house in Lucerne shown in photographs on the biography page, was actually the Swiss home of the 'Titanic' Spencers?

 

[Rachel Kulberg]

Does any one know if William Augustus Spencer & Marie Eugenie Spencer had a relative by the name of S. H. Spencer or S. L. Spencer who was a china painter? I may have one of their works

 

[Jeannine Kirmann]

Mrs Spencer was born Marie Eugénie Demougeot in Mussey (Lorraine, France)

She came from a modest background, her father was a boilermaker and her mother a seamstress.

She was a morphine addict. After the shipwreck, she returned to Paris.

My great aunt, Aurélie Chiron, who had worked for the Spencers, saw her again before her death. She was very confused.. She recognized my great aunt and could only say " my little Aurélie, my little Aurélie ".

My great aunt was supposed to leave with Spencer but her lover made her miss her train in Paris and so the boat in Cherbourg.

Aurélie was very attached to Spencer and couldn't bear to see any movie about the sinking of the Titanic. She said, before dying, that she would not have left William Spencer and would have died with him.

I am hoping to find a photo of William Spencer and Marie Eugénie Spencer.

Thank you for your help.

 

[luckdodod]

I am looking for a portrait of william Augustus Spencer, could anyone help me, thank you in advance

 

[Walter Poturalski]

Does anyone have any pics of the Spencer's at all. Either William Augustus Spencer or Marie Eugenie, or possibly BOTH?

Thanks

 

[Sergey Dyakonov]

I'd like to share what I've discovered about Marie Eugénie's resting place while searching Parisian burial registers on the Net.

On 30 October 1913 Marie Eugénie was buried at the Batignolles Cemetery in Paris, but unfortunately the grave doesn't exist anymore — it was removed in 1978.

 

[Michael Hinz]

I must say that the Spencer collection at the New York Public Library is wonderful. Volumes and volumes of nineteenth century works (which W. A. Spencer was especially interested in) line the shelves. The library also has several pictures, and a portrait of William Augustus Spencer in their special archives department. Unfortunately, there are no photos of Marie Spencer known to exist at the library.

Hello Michael,

Is it possible to see the portrait of William Augustus Spencer anywhere? The discovery of previously unknown photos of Titanic victims and survivors is always a kind of sensation for the international Titanic community.

 

[EntenteCordiale]

Hello Michael,

Is it possible to see the portrait of William Augustus Spencer anywhere? The discovery of previously unknown photos of Titanic victims and survivors is always a kind of sensation for the international Titanic community.

I am a descendent of Marie Eugénie. She was my great great grand father's cousin although she was closer in age to my great grand father. All the information about her background is correct. Just to add that she was born from an unknown father. Louis Nicolas Demougeot adopted her when he married her mum when she was 9 years old. He was indeed a boilermaker. Her mother died 5 months later. We believe she moved to Paris with her adopted father who remarried a few years later and had more children. We have no idea what happened to her after this until she married William A at the age of 20 in London. We have no idea how they came about to meet. There is some belief that she was an opera singer and had sang with Caruso but that's not possible as he came about 10 years after she married. No occupation is stated on their marriage certificate. We don't know if she worked for the family and he fell madly in love with her. No-one attended the wedding in the UK on a Christmas Eve.

What I heard from my grandmother (named Eugénie after her) was that she indeed was mentally unwell after coming back to France and insisted on everything around her being white, including her Rolls Royce. They never had any children.

She was due to leave my great grand father in her will but they had a massive argument and she changed her mind. We don't know what the argument was about.

Sadly we don't have any pictures of her either. It is very strange that there doesn't seem to be any of them together. There is a lot of mystery surrounding them.

 

[Michael Hinz]

I am a descendent of Marie Eugénie. She was my great great grand father's cousin although she was closer in age to my great grand father. All the information about her background is correct. Just to add that she was born from an unknown father. Louis Nicolas Demougeot adopted her when he married her mum when she was 9 years old. He was indeed a boilermaker. Her mother died 5 months later. We believe she moved to Paris with her adopted father who remarried a few years later and had more children. We have no idea what happened to her after this until she married William A at the age of 20 in London. We have no idea how they came about to meet. There is some belief that she was an opera singer and had sang with Caruso but that's not possible as he came about 10 years after she married. No occupation is stated on their marriage certificate. We don't know if she worked for the family and he fell madly in love with her. No-one attended the wedding in the UK on a Christmas Eve.

What I heard from my grandmother (named Eugénie after her) was that she indeed was mentally unwell after coming back to France and insisted on everything around her being white, including her Rolls Royce. They never had any children.

She was due to leave my great grand father in her will but they had a massive argument and she changed her mind. We don't know what the argument was about.

Sadly we don't have any pictures of her either. It is very strange that there doesn't seem to be any of them together. There is a lot of mystery surrounding them.

Thank you for your message. From what I've read about the Spencer's, I assume Mr Spencer was a loving husband who took great care of his sick wife. In another thread it was speculated that Mrs Spencer was addicted to morphine and was suffering from depression. This apparently caused the Spencer's not to participate much in social life aboard Titanic, which is why they were not mentioned in any survivors account (with the exception of Steward Etche's testimony before the American inquiry).

Mrs Spencer came from a humble background. I gather from your message that the Spencers married for love, which was quite unusual for the time. Am I right?

 

[Arun Vajpey]

In another thread it was speculated that Mrs Spencer was addicted to morphine and was suffering from depression

While I do not know the circumstances under which Mrs Spencer was taking morphine (assuming that was true, of course) a lot of opiate addiction in those days was the result of the doctors' continued prescription of the medications for a variety of ailments rather than any fault of the patient. Some doctors did use small doses of morphine to treat depressive states, which we now know is not appropriate. But in those days there were very few alternatives and the apparent "relaxed" state that it produced resulted in continued "treatment". This was often the case with wealthy families where it was more socially awkward to have patients with symptoms of mental health problems.

But of course, coming off it once the patient appeared to improve was a rather difficult.

This apparently caused the Spencer's not to participate much in social life aboard Titanic, which is why they were not mentioned in any survivors account (with the exception of Steward Etche's testimony before the American inquiry)

Etches said that after he attended to Guggenheim & Giglio, he walked down the corridor and (rather infamously) banged on the door of B-78 without getting the occupants to open the door. He then walked over to the next cabin B-76 where the door was open and he saw a "lady and gentleman" standing with their life vests in their hands. That could only have been the Spencers, who were in B-76 according to the Cave List.

After helping his wife into a lifeboat - most likely Lifeboat #6 - William Augustus Spencer stood back on the ship's deck was was eventually lost.

 

[EntenteCordiale]

I've read all the speculation about cabin b76 Vs b78. We know that it was Elise who helped Mrs Spencer out of the room and on Board which led me to wonder whether it was Marie Eugénie who was in room b78 who'd answered Etches. He mention a voice first followed by a female voice. The first one, further away, if just woken up could have led him to think it was male.

If she was indeed deep in morphine, she could have been asleep until this time and then speaking groggily. If she suffered from anxiety, it might explain not opening the door. Mr Spencer might have been elsewhere at the time.

At the same time, b76 was more luxurious with a bathroom and bathtub and it's hard to believe they wouldn't have wanted such room, especially considering they paid substantially more than expected for a room and maid cabin.

So who knows!

 

[EntenteCordiale]

Mrs Spencer came from a humble background. I gather from your message that the Spencers married for love, which was quite unusual for the time. Am I right?

Yes, I do wonder. She came from a very humble background. Her mum died when she was 9, her father was her husband who adopted her when they married. Her mum died only 5 months later. We assume her adopted father looked after her. He was a boilermaker from records.

Such complete worlds, so wish I knew how they collided.

 

[Arun Vajpey]

At the same time, b76 was more luxurious with a bathroom and bathtub and it's hard to believe they wouldn't have wanted such room, especially considering they paid substantially more than expected for a room and maid cabin.

Officially, either B76 or B78 was paid for and occupied by the Spencer couple, not both. The maid was in B80.
I believe that the Cave List was accurate for the names and occupancies available and it has the Spencer couple in B76. It was decorated in the French style and might have appealed more to the French Opera singer Eugenie Spencer.

If she was indeed deep in morphine, she could have been asleep until this time and then speaking groggily. If she suffered from anxiety, it might explain not opening the door. Mr Spencer might have been elsewhere at the time.

I think a bit too much is made of her supposed "addiction" to morphine. It is possible that her doctor was prescribing it for low mood (not appropriate from today's evidence based medicine, of course) but if so, it would have been a small dose. I am a retired doctor and so know that to a regular user to get "groggy" from morphine, it would have to be quite a large dose, which I very much doubt Mrs Spencer was taking.

Mr William Spencer comes across as a gentleman who cared very much for his wife and I am sure he would have been in the same bedroom as her especially of she was feeling a bit under the weather.

Moreover, Etches was quite clear that after he attended to Gig and Gug in Cabin B-82, he walked towards B-78 with the other two right behind him. After trying unsuccessfully to get the unknown couple in there to open the door, he continued to the next cabin (which could only hav been B-76 going in the same direction) and saw that a "a lady and a gentleman" stood at the door with life vests. To me, that sounds exactly like someone of Etches station (as seen in those days) would describe a middle aged couple like the Spencers.