Robert Wilkie Spence (1844 - 1916)

Born 8 Oct 1844 in Carstairs, Lanarkshire, Scotland

Ancestors

Died 4 Jan 1916 at age 71 in Toronto, York, Ontario, Canada

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Biography

Robert was baptised in Nov 1844, in Carstairs, the son of John Spence and Mary Wilkie.

In 1851, at age 6, Robert is living at Schoolhouse, in the village of Carstairs, where he was born, with his parents John age 46, Mary age 36, and his siblings, Mary age 13, John age 11, Marion age 8, William age 4 and Margaret age 2. Also living at the house is his cousin Eliza Robertson age 10, and a Shoemakers apprentice, Daniel Prentice age 15.

In 1864 he emigrated to St. John's, Newfoundland, where he worked as a salesman and buyer for a dry goods business. He moved to Montreal in 1872 and Toronto later that decade. In Toronto he and two partners established Caldecott, Burton & Spence, a wholesale dry goods importer. He became a member of the Toronto Board of Trade in 1886.

Robert passed away in 1916 and he is buried in the Mount Pleasant cemetery in Toronto, Canada.

Sources

• Robert Wilkie Spence in the Scotland, Select births and baptisms, 1564-1950.

• Robt Spence in the 1851 Scotland census

• https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-1-197666851-23-232/robert-spence-in-myheritage-family-trees

• http://search.ancestry.com.au/search/collections/1851Scotland/2850750/printer-friendly

• http://www.thegraynation.com/individual_History.asp?AccountID=2577

• Toronto Board of Trade: "A Souvenir," 1893, p. 200

• Robert Wilkie Spence in the Canada, Find A Grave Index, 1600s - Current.

• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/177102809