Augustus Andrew Spence (28 June 1933<ref name="cainbio">Biographies of people prominent during 'the Troubles': S . Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN). Retrieved 5 April 2011.</ref> – 25 September 2011) was a leader of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and a leading loyalist politician in Northern Ireland. 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.
Early years
Spence was born in the Shankill Road, Belfast, area, Northern Ireland, the son of William Edward Spence, who was born in Whitehaven, England and raised in the Tiger's Bay area of north Belfast before moving to the Shankill. Spence Snr was a member of the Ulster Volunteers and had fought in the First World War. He married Isabella "Bella" Hayes, Gusty Spence's mother, in 1919. Spence was the sixth of seven children, their birth order being Billy, Cassie, Jim, Bobby, Ned junior, Gusty and Lily. The family home was 66 Joseph Street in an area of the lower Shankill known colloquially as "the Hammer". He was educated at the Riddel School on Malvern Street and the Hemsworth Square school, finishing his education aged fourteen. He was also a member of the Church Lads' Brigade, a Church of Ireland group and the Junior Orange Order. His family had a long tradition of Orange Order membership.
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). 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. Spence then found employment at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, where he worked as a stager (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. He was also a member of the Royal Black Institution and the Apprentice Boys of Derry. 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.
Involvement with loyalism
His older brother Billy Spence was a founding member of Ulster Protestant Action (UPA) in 1956 and Gusty Spence himself was also a member of the group. He was frequently involved in street fights with republicans and garnered a reputation as a "hard man". He was also associated loosely with prominent loyalists such as Ian Paisley and Desmond Boal and was advised by both men in 1959 when he launched a protest against Gerry Fitt at Belfast City Hall after Fitt had described Spence's regiment as "murderers" over allegations that they had killed civilians in Cyprus. Spence, along with other Shankill Road loyalists, broke from Paisley in 1965 when they sided with Jim Kilfedder in a row that followed the latter's campaigns in Belfast West. Paisley had intimated that Kilfedder, a rival for the leadership of dissident unionism, was close to Fine Gael after learning that he had attended party meetings while a student at Trinity College Dublin. The Shankill loyalists supported Kilfedder and following his election as MP sent a letter to Paisley accusing him of treachery during the entire affair.
