page_title: John Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer
section_title: Political career, 1857–1885
hierarchical_section_title: John Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer / Political career, 1857–1885
caption_attribution_description: Gaeilge: Maolra Seoighe (Pictiúir a glacadh ag an bpriosún, 1882) English: Myles Joyce - Maolra Seoighe (Picture taken in prison, 1882)
context_page_description: John Poyntz Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer, KG, KP, PC, known as Viscount Althorp from 1845 to 1857, was a British Liberal Party politician under, and close friend of, British prime minister William Ewart Gladstone. He was twice Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
context_section_description: Almost immediately after leaving Cambridge Spencer was elected to parliament for South Northamptonshire as a Liberal, before departing for a tour of North America. He returned in December 1857, and within a few days his father died, leaving him as the new Earl Spencer. He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1859 and made a Knight of the Garter in 1864. Spencer split from other whiggish aristocratic Liberals in 1866 on the issue of Russell's reform bill, which he supported, and his loyalty was rewarded by his appointment as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland when Gladstone returned to power in 1868. Ireland came to be a major preoccupation of the remainder of Spencer's long political career. In this first tenure as Lord Lieutenant, he had to deal with implementation of the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869 and of the Irish Land Act of 1870, both of which measures he strongly supported. Spencer, in fact, went further than most of his ministerial colleagues, including Gladstone himself, in arguing for the setting up of government tribunals to enforce fair rents on Irish landlords.
  Spencer, along with the successive Chief Secretaries for Ireland, Chichester Fortescue and Spencer's own cousin, Lord Hartington, supported coercive legislation to deal with the increase in agrarian crime, but at the same time supported a policy of releasing Fenian prisoners when possible. Spencer also had to deal during his tenure with Gladstone's Irish Universities Bill. In spite of Spencer's efforts to secure the support of the Catholic hierarchy for the bill, they opposed it, and it went down to defeat in the commons in March 1873. The government lingered on for a further year, until the election defeat of February 1874, when Spencer found himself out of office. When Gladstone returned to power for his second government in 1880, Spencer joined the Cabinet as Lord President of the Council, having responsibility for education policy, and was partially responsible for several major educational reforms of the period. The increasingly tense situation in Ireland, however, commanded an increasing portion of Spencer's time. In May 1882, Gladstone's decision to release the Irish Nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell from prison led to the resignation of the hardline Chief Secretary for Ireland, W. E. Forster. As a result, Spencer, while retaining his seat in the cabinet and position as Lord President, was again appointed Lord Lieutenant to take charge of the government's Irish policy.
  Spencer and his new chief secretary, Gladstone's nephew and Hartington's brother Lord Frederick Cavendish, crossed to Ireland on 5 May, but Cavendish and the permanent under-secretary, Thomas Henry Burke, were murdered by extremist Irish nationalists the next day in Phoenix Park, Dublin, while walking to the Viceregal Lodge where Spencer was staying. Spencer, assisted by George Trevelyan, his new secretary, was now faced with the difficult task of pacifying Ireland. Spencer acted quickly to reform the Irish police forces and destroy the secret societies which had been responsible for the murders. He attracted heavy criticism for his poor handling of a group of murders in Maamtrasna - one of the supposed criminals, Myles Joyce, had been hanged while still proclaiming his innocence, leading to a great deal of condemnation of Spencer from Irish Nationalist sources. The end of Spencer's second tenure as viceroy saw the successful visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to Ireland, but Spencer's efforts to get the Queen to agree to the creation of a royal residence in Ireland were unsuccessful.
caption: Spencer received condemnation from Irish Nationalist sources for his role in the trial for the Maamtrasna murders.[3]
exif: {"Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image ExifOffset": "102", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "316", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "671"}