Businessman shaped town we know today
KNOWN as the ‘Grand Old Man of Shields’, the prominent local businessman John Foster Spence will be the subject of a talk later this month.
The talk, by local historian Mike Coates, will take place at the Old Low Light Heritage Centre on Saturday, May 28, at 11am. Entry is £4 and free for Old Low Light members. It is part of a programme of events linked to the centre’s current exhibition, Folk who Shaped Shields, which focuses on the contributions of four inspirational figures – John Dobson, John Foster Spence, Richard Irvin and Sir James Knott – who all played a major role in North Shields’ history.
Mike, one of a small team of Old Low Light volunteers who researched and curated the exhibition, will outline the key achievements of philanthropist Spence, who was a member of a leading Quaker family. He will describe how Spence (1818-1901) spent six decades serving the community as a councillor, mayor, alderman, magistrate and active member of many local committees and societies for which he was honoured in 1894 when he was given the Freedom of the Borough of Tynemouth.
As a young man, in 1840, he was prominent in a campaign to build a customs house in North Shields to free the port from Newcastle’s control and played an important role in the River Tyne Commission. He was the driving force behind the establishment of the Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade in 1864 following a tragedy when a steamship was grounded on rocks, resulting in the deaths of 25 people. (He remained an active member of the brigade until his death).
Twenty years later he was instrumental in the development of Northumberland Park, seeing this as an opportunity to provide much-needed employment for local people. For almost 50 years he was on the board of the Tynemouth Poor Law Guardians and was a familiar figure at the workhouse on Christmas Day having his dinner with people much less fortunate than himself.
One of the ways in which his name lives on is in John Spence Community High School.