Spencer was born on 14 April 1798 at the Admiralty Building, London, and was baptised in St Martin-in-the-Fields.

His maternal grandparents were Irish peer Charles Bingham, 1st Earl of Lucan, and his wife, the portrait miniature painter Margaret Smyth.

[3] Spencer then joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman on 18 September 1811, and fought in the Napoleonic Wars in the Mediterranean between 1811 and 1815.

[3] During the Greek War of Independence he commanded HMS Talbot at the Battle of Navarino on 20 October 1827 and was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in November of that year.

Spencer then retired from naval life and was elected Whig Member of Parliament for Worcestershire in 1831.

They had two children: Lord Spencer died at the family seat at Althorp, Brington, Northamptonshire, in December 1857, aged 59, and was succeeded in the earldom by his only son from his first marriage, John, who became a Liberal politician.

Spencer's son from his second marriage, Charles, who succeeded in the earldom in 1910, was also a Liberal politician.