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Richard Austin Spencer

politician, died 1956

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 3, 2024
Entity authorityQ26330206 ↗
Source-derived summary

Richard Austin Spencer (8 August 1892 – 8 December 1956) was Conservative MP for St Helens.

Educated at the Salford Grammar School and Borough Road College, London, Spencer took a first-class honours BA and MA in Modern Languages from the University of London. During the First World War, he joined the Manchester Regiment, before transferring to the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of captain, and was mentioned in despatches. After the war, he turned to teaching, becoming senior lecturer in English at Manchester Training College, then taught French at Manchester Central High School.

Interested in local government, Spencer was elected chairman of the Hale Urban District Council. He contested St Helens in the 1929 general election, won the seat from Labour in the National Government landslide in 1931, but lost it back to them in 1935.

He was called to the bar by Gray's Inn in 1937 and was Secretary of the Royal Society of Teachers from 1936 to 1953. He also published several French textbooks.

References

"Mr. R. A. Spencer".

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Richard Austin Spencer” as politician, died 1956. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Richard, Austin and Spencer.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1892, 1956, 1929, 1931—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1892-08-08. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Richard, Austin and Spencer providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Richard Austin Spencer”, the useful work is to connect “politician, died 1956” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 3, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q26330206. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1892, 1956, 1929 and 1931.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Richard Austin Spencer primary sources, Richard Austin Spencer archive and Richard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Richard Austin Spencer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.