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Augustus Andrew Spence (28 June 1933 Biographies of people prominent during 'the Troubles': S . Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN). Retrieved 5 April 2011. – 25 September 2011) was a Northern Irish Ulster loyalist, politician, and militant who was the leader of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). One of the first UVF members to be convicted of murder, Spence was a senior figure in the organisation for over a decade.
During his time in prison Spence renounced violence and helped to convince a number of fellow inmates that the future of the UVF lay in a more political approach. Spence joined the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), becoming a leading figure in the group. As a PUP representative he took a principal role in delivering the loyalist ceasefires of 1994.
Spence took various manual jobs in the area until joining the British Army in 1957 as a member of the Royal Ulster Rifles. He rose to the rank of Provost Sergeant (battalion police).Jim Cusack & Henry McDonald, UVF, Dublin: Poolbeg, 1997, p. 20 Spence served until 1961 when ill-health forced him to leave. He had been stationed in Cyprus and saw action fighting against the forces of Colonel Georgios Grivas.Moloney, Paisley, p. 130 Spence then found employment at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, where he worked as a Scaffolding (builder of the scaffolding in which the ships are constructed), a skilled job that commanded respect amongst working class Protestants and ensured for Spence a higher status within the Shankill.
From an early age Spence was a member of the Prince Albert Temperance Loyal Orange Lodge, where fellow members included John McQuade.Moloney, Paisley, pp. 130–131 He was also a member of the Royal Black Institution and the Apprentice Boys of Derry.Susan McKay, Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People, Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 2005, p. 139 Due to his later involvement in a murder, Spence was expelled from the Orange Order and the Royal Black Institution. The Reverend Martin Smyth was influential in Spence' being thrown out the Orange Order.Brian Kennaway The Orange Order-A Tradition Betrayed, p. 47
On 7 May 1966, a group of UVF men led by Spence a Catholic-owned pub on the Shankill Road. Fire also engulfed the house next door, killing the elderly Protestant widow, Matilda Gould (77), who lived there. On 27 May, Spence ordered four UVF men to kill an Irish Republican Army (IRA) member, Leo Martin, who lived on the Falls Road. Unable to find their target, the men drove around in search of any Catholic instead. They shot dead John Scullion (28), a Catholic civilian, as he walked home.Dillon, Martin. The Shankill butchers: the real story of cold-blooded mass murder. Routledge, 1999. Pages 20–23 Spence later wrote "at the time, the attitude was that if you couldn't get an IRA man you should shoot a Taig, he's your last resort". On 26 June, the same gang shot dead Catholic civilian Peter Ward (18) and wounded two others as they left a pub on Malvern Street in the lower Shankill. Two days later, the government of Northern Ireland used the Special Powers Act to declare the UVF illegal. Shortly after, Spence and three others were arrested.
In October 1966, Spence was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Ward, although Spence has always claimed he was innocent. He was sent to Crumlin Road Prison. During its The Twelfth 1967 march, the Orange lodge to which he belonged stopped outside the prison in tribute to him.McKay, Susan. "Portadown: Bitter Harvest" . Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People. Blackstaff Press, 2000. This occurred despite Spence having been officially expelled from the Orange Order following his conviction.Garland, Gusty Spence, p. 77 Spence's involvement in the killings gave him legendary status among many young loyalists and he was claimed as an inspiration by the likes of Michael Stone.Martin Dillon, Stone Cold, London: Arrow Books, 1993, pp. 23–24 Tim Pat Coogan has described Spence as a "loyalist folk hero".Tim Pat Coogan, The Troubles, London: Hutchinson, 1995, p. 380 The murder of Ward was, however, repudiated by Paisley and condemned in his Protestant Telegraph, sealing the split between the two.Peter Taylor, Loyalists, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2000, p. 43
Spence's time on the outside came to an end on 4 November when he was captured by Colonel Derek Wilford of the Parachute Regiment, who identified Spence by tattoos on his hands. He was returned to Crumlin Road jail soon afterwards, where he shared a cell with William "Plum" Smith, one of the Red Hand Commandos whom he had met upon his initial release and who had since been jailed for attempted murder.Taylor, Loyalists, pp. 112–113
Spence began to move towards a position of using political means to advance one's aims, and he persuaded the UVF leadership to declare a temporary ceasefire in 1973.Taylor, Loyalists, p. 138 Following Merlyn Rees' decision to legalise the UVF in 1974, Spence encouraged them to enter politics and supported the establishment of the Volunteer Political Party. However, Spence's ideas were abandoned as the UVF ceasefire fell apart that same year following the Ulster Workers' Council strike and the Dublin and Monaghan bombings; the carnage of the latter had shocked and horrified Spence.Taylor, Loyalists, p.139 Furthermore, the VPP suffered a heavy defeat in West Belfast in the October 1974 general election, when the DUP candidate John McQuade captured six times as many votes as the VPP's Ken Gibson.Taylor, pp. 139–140
Spence was increasingly disillusioned with the UVF and he imparted these views to fellow inmates at Long Kesh. According to Billy Mitchell, Spence quizzed him and others sent to the Maze about why they were there, seeking an ideology answer to his question. When the prisoner was unable to provide one, Spence would then seek to convince them of the wisdom of his more politicised path, something that he accomplished with Mitchell.McKay, Northern Protestants, p. 55 David Ervine and Billy Hutchinson were among the other UVF men imprisoned in the mid-1970s to become disciples of Spence.Taylor, Loyalists, pp. 141–142 In 1977, he publicly condemned the use of violence for political gain, on the grounds that it was counter-productive. In 1978, Spence left the UVF altogether. His brother Bobby, also a UVF member, died in October 1980 inside the Maze, a few months after the death of their brother Billy.Garland, Roy. Gusty Spence. p. 242
He was entrusted by the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) to read out their 13 October 1994 statement that announced the loyalist ceasefire. Flanked by his PUP colleagues Jim McDonald and William Plum Smith, as well as Ulster Democratic Party members Gary McMichael, John White and Davy Adams, Spence read out the statement from Fernhill a former Cunningham family home on their former Glencairn estate in Belfast's Glencairn area. This building had been an important training centre for members of Edward Carson's original UVF.McDonald & Cusack, UDA, pp. 274–275 A few days after the announcement, Spence made a trip to the United States along with the PUP's David Ervine and Billy Hutchinson and the UDP's McMichael, Adams and Joe English. Among their engagements was one as guests of honour of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.McDonald & Cusack, UDA, p. 275 Spence went on to become a leading advocate for the Good Friday Agreement.
In August 2000, Spence was caught up in moves by Johnny Adair's "C" Company of the UDA to take control of the Shankill by forcing out the UVF and other opponents. Adair's men forced their way into Spence's Shankill home but found it empty, as Spence tended to spend much of the summer at a caravan he owned in Groomsport. None the less, they ransacked the house and stole Spence's army medals, while the Spence family were forced to stay off the Shankill for the entirety of the loyalist feud.McDonald & Cusack, UDA, pp. 326–327 When Spence's wife died three years later, he said that C Company had been responsible for her death, such was the toll that the events had taken on her health.McDonald & Cusack, UDA, p. 327
On 3 May 2007, Spence read out the statement by the UVF announcing that it would keep its weapons but put them beyond the reach of ordinary members. The statement also included a warning that activities could "provoke another generation of loyalists toward armed resistance". He did not specify what activities or what was being resisted.
However, a granddaughter of Matilda Gould, a 74-year-old Protestant widow who had died from burns sustained in the UVF's attempted bombing of a Catholic bar next door to her home, objected to Spence being called a "peacemaker" and described him as a "bad evil man". The unnamed woman stated, "When you go out and throw a petrol bomb through a widow's window, you're no peacemaker." "Granddaughter of victim says Gusty Spence was not a peacemaker" , BBC News
His funeral service was held in St Michael's Church of Ireland on the Shankill Road. Notable mourners included Unionist politicians Dawn Purvis, Mike Nesbitt, Michael McGimpsey, Hugh Smyth and Brian Ervine, UVF chief John "Bunter" Graham and UDA South Belfast brigadier Jackie McDonald. In accordance with Spence's wishes, there were no paramilitary trappings at the funeral or reference to his time in the UVF. Instead his coffin was adorned with the beret and regimental flag of the Royal Ulster Rifles, his former regiment. He was buried in Bangor. "Shankill shuts to pay its respects to UVF chief Gusty Spence" , Belfast Telegraph "Ex UVF chief laid to rest" , Newsletter
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