Spencer, Charles Robert, 6th Earl Spencer (1857 -1922)

Charles Robert Spencer was styled the Honourable Charles Spencer until 1905, and known as The Viscount Althorp between 1905 and 1910. He was born in Westminster, the son of Frederick Spencer, 4th Earl Spencer, by his second wife Adelaide Seymour, daughter of Horace Beauchamp Seymour. John Poyntz Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer, was his elder half-brother. Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, Charles Robert represented Northamptonshire in Parliament from 1880 to 1905, and served as Vice-Chamberlain of the Household from 1892 to 1895 under William Ewart Gladstone. From 1905 to 1912 he was appointed Lord Chamberlain in the Liberal administrations of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and H. H. Asquith. He married the Hon. Margaret Baring (1868-1906), daughter of Edward Baring, 1st Baron Revelstoke, and Louisa Emily Charlotte Bulteel, in London, on 23 July 1887. They had six children – three sons, and three daughters. They were also great-grandparents of Diana, Princess of Wales. On 19 December 1905 Charles Robert was created Viscount Althorp, allowing him to become Lord Chamberlain in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's new Liberal administration. On 13 August 1910 he inherited the earldom on the death of his childless elder brother, John Poyntz Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer. From 1908 to 1922 he was Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire. He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in 1911, and a Knight of the Garter in 1913. Lord Spencer died in September 1922 at his home in St James Place, London, aged 64. He had been ill for four months after contracting a chill at a public event in his home county of Northamptonshire. His eldest son Albert succeeded him in the earldom.