Thomas Spencer 

Thomas Spencer (1791-1811) was an Independent minister in Liverpool but only for a short time due to his premature death in 1811 at the age of 20. Spencer was originally from Herfordshire, and came to London for an apprenticeship at the age of 14 to a glover in the Poultry. He met the prominent Independent layman Thomas Wilson, who at that time was treasurer of the Hoxton Academy, an institution established for the training of Independent (Congregationalist) ministers.  He was admitted to the academy in 1807 (he had already spent a year at Harwich preparing for his entrance to the academy). He began preaching shortly thereafter in London and Hertfordshire to great acclaim, and in 1809 preached as a teenager in Rowland Hill's pulpit at the Surrey Chapel. In 1810 he accepted the call to pastor the Independent congregation at Newington, Liverpool, where Thomas Raffles was already a successful Independent minister. He commenced preaching there in February 1811 and was ordained that June. Before long a new chapel had to be built to accommodate the crowds of more than 2000 who attended to hear his sermons. Tragically, Spencer drowned while bathing on 5 August 1811, only a few months after the commencement of his ministry in Liverpool. Thomas Raffles published a Memoir (with a large set of letters by Spencer to John Haddon of London) accompanied by an elegy by the popular dissenting poet, James Montgomery.  Twenty-One Sermons by Spencer was published by the Religious Tract Society in 1829, with an American edition appearing in 1856.  For a detailed biography of Spencer, see Thomas Raffles's Memoir, which opens with this dedication by Raffles: 

To the Church and Congregation late under the pastoral care of the Rev. Thomas Spencer these Memoirs, compiled and published at their request, as a testimony to the world of the admiration and esteem his genius and his piety universally inspired; and as a grateful memorial of his acceptable labors and transcendent excellencies, as a minister, as a man, and as a Christian, are respectfully inscribed, by their affectionate pastor and sincere friend, Thomas Raffles.