Description:Pictured are three members of the Spencer family outside their shop in Green Road, Weston. On the left is Ethel (who later married and became Ethel Davenport) with her brother Reginald Spencer. Standing behind the basket on wheels (by the dog) is their father Thomas Edwin Spencer, known as Edwin.
Edwin was born in 1860 in Kent, Ohio, USA. At the age of 11 he and his elder brother decided to leave the USA and worked their passage on a ship which brought them to Britain. They made their way to Birmingham and later when Edwin was married, he moved with his wife and family to a house in Weston where he started a Bakery business. The family then moved into a cottage next door to a shop in Green Road, this shop became the Spencer’s Shop/Weston Stores. At a later date Edwin and his wife kept the Woolpack public house in Weston and eventually they returned to the baking and confectionery business in Green Road.
During 1918 Reginald and his elder brother Harold fought with the Royal Field Artillery, Reginald as a Corporal and Harold as a Gunner. After the war the brothers returned to Weston and helped with the family business which Edwin had kept ticking over. After their parents died Reginald and Harold along with their wives continued with the business until the late 1950s.
In later years Weston did not forget the Spencer family and named a development of bungalows as Spencer Close, in Green Road opposite to where the family shop had stood.
Acknowledgement: The Staffordshire Advertiser.