William Ball Spencer was born on 22nd June 1854 in Stepney and baptised there at St Thomas’s on 30th July 1854. On 12th October 1873 at Trinity Church, Stepney, he married Fanny Wardill, aged 20, daughter of Jonathan Wardill, a civil engineer. The 1881 census places him, aged 27, at 8 High Street, Poplar, as a ‘marine artist’ living with his wife Fanny (27, b.Stepney), their four sons ranging from aged seven to five months, and their Sheerness-born servant, Charles C. Seward, aged 16. The last is listed as ‘Shop boy to Artist’ which suggests William was running an establishment where he also sold his work, perhaps with prints and similar items. Like his painter father, Richard Ball Spencer (1812–1897), William mainly painted broadside-view ship portraits in a similar style, though occasionally doing other marine views and copying earlier naval battle paintings.
The second name of both William and Richard Spencer has sometimes been given as ‘Barnett’ not ‘Ball’: this is incorrect, but where the error originated is not clear. If William’s immediately older brother Richard W. Spencer was also ‘in practice’ as a painter as the family’s 1871 census entry suggests, nothing by him is yet apparent.
Adapted by Pieter van der Merwe from painting entries originally written for the National Maritime Museum database: see NMM BHC3726 (R. B. Spencer) and NMM BHC3286 (W. B. Spencer), with thanks to Sue Peacock, a descendant, and Martin Hopkinson.
Text source: Art Detective
