Samuel Birch (Lord Mayor of London) advocacy of the Protestant ascendency in Ireland. In 1811, he was appointed one of the sheriffs of London, and on 9 November 1814 Birch entered on his duties as lord mayor. Tory though he was, he opposed the Corn Bill of 1815, and presided at a meeting of the livery in common hall on 23 February 1815, when he made a vigorous attack upon the intended prohibition of the free importation of foreign corn. The course he took on this occasion is commemorated by a medal struck in his honour on the obverse side of which is the bust of
John Spencer (Lord Mayor of London) Bocking, which he had obtained from the Queen on 1 August 1599. Spencer left nothing to public purposes. In Canonbury, a residential square which was laid out in 1963, is named after Sir John Spencer. He, at the time, was Lord Mayor of London and had a country retreat at Canonbury in the early 17th Century. John Spencer Square had former residents include Labour Party Cabinet Minister Barbara Castle and her husband Ted Castle, journalist and GLC Alderman. By his wife, Alice Bromfield, Spencer had an only child, Elizabeth, who in 1598 was sought in marriage by William Compton, 2nd