[2] Spencer was educated at St Albans School, and privately in Greenwich prior to joining the navy.

Spencer's first assignment was officiating as a curate at Prittlewell, Essex, before becoming a Society for the Propagation of the Gospel missionary to Newfoundland.

In Newfoundland, he increased the number of clergy by offering stipends guaranteed by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, built schools and new churches, and laid the foundation stone for a cathedral.

He obtained control of that society by becoming a Vice-President, licensing its schoolmasters (if not ordained) to act as lay readers, and appointed the Rev.

He had little time for dissent, and the Methodists were quick to attack his making the Newfoundland School Society an auxiliary of the church, accusing him of having "high and exclusive claims", and of influencing the younger generation and "infusing into their minds the common notions of the high church party".

Had they read his sermon preached in St John's, they would have realised that not only was he very anti-Tractarian and anti-Catholic, he also insisted on the Church of England having its ministry from the Apostles and condemned those who rejected forms and undervalued the sacraments.

His last publication, A Brief Account of the Church of England, its Faith and Worship: as shown by the Book of Common Prayer, published in 1867, was circulated in Spanish and Italian by the Anglo-Continental Society, and was a decidedly Protestant work.