NEWPORT BRANCH Tuesday, 2024 October 29

Moving Up in the World by Mary Spencer-Jones

Our speaker this month was Mary Spencer-Jones, a Newport member who has recently retired from her position at the Natural History Museum in London. Her

topic was very well received as it involved pure Family History with the usage of, in particular, Census Records and Newspaper Clippings, to illustrate the life of one of

her ancestors.

She started in the early years of the nineteenth century in Wiltshire with William Jones and his wife Eliza. They were involved in agricultural work and, because of the

troubled times, decided to move elsewhere to try and find a better life. They selected South Wales and in the 1851 census could be found in Neath in Glamorgan. In 1857 a

son, Spencer Edwin Jones, was born and he was the individual whose life Mary followed. In the sixties the family moved to Newport.

During the whole course of his life Spencer worked hard to progress and moved house almost every decade to a more modern and presumably more comfortable

dwelling, This was made possible as Newport was growing rapidly and so new houses were always being built. In fact the population of the town grew from about

1000 in 1800 to 100,000 by 1939. This search for improved living standards explains the title of the talk ‘Moving up in the World.’

In 1874 Spencer married and in the 1881 census he is living with his wife in Newport and is employed as a policeman. However, as Gilbert and Sullivan would have us

believe in the Pirates of Penzance, ‘A Policeman’s Lot is not a Happy One’. So by the 1891 census Spencer was recorded as a ‘Sanitary Inspector’

The following years he consolidated his position and finally became the Chief ‘Inspector of Nuisances’ for Newport. This strange term includes control of drinking

water, sewerage, cemetery usage and disease control, His improved status was clear when in 1904 he was invited to join the Masons.

Spencer’s main interest outside of work was music. He was a member of various choirs and became the conductor of the Newport Police Singers. He finally passed

away at home at the age of 81 in 1938.