William Kingdon Spencer, educationist and authority on
Palaeozoic starfishes, was the son of John Firth Spencer and Mary Kingdon. He studied for a year at Owen's College, Manchester, and in
1898 obtained a scholarship to Magdalen College, University of Oxford, where he
graduated with first class honours in zoology and geology in 1902. He spent
half a year at the University of Marburg, Germany, before returning to Oxford
with a post-graduate scholarship, acting as lecturer and demonstrator in
geology, in addition to his research. In 1904, having been awarded a DSc
degree, he became a lecturer in biology at the University College in Bangor,
Wales, but soon joined the Board of Education as inspector of science in schools
and training colleges, a position he held until his retirement in 1938. During
these years and after his retirement he continued with palaeontological
research.
Spencer published about 30 papers, mainly on fossil
starfishes but including some contributions to arthropod research. His most
important publications were a monograph on 'The evolution of the Cretaceous Asteroidea'
[starfishes] (Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society, 1913) and A monograph
of the British Palaeozoic Asterozoa [starfishes and brittle stars] (1913-1965,
in 11 parts). In one of his earlier papers he described 'Archaster patersoni, n. sp. A new South African fossil starfish' in
the Records of the Albany Museum
(1915, Vol. 3(2), pp. 65-69).
Spencer was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of
London in 1903 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1931. In 1904 he married
Kate V.G. Stewart. After his retirement he settled in Nice, France, but after
the death of his wife in 1940 moved to South Africa. For some time he was
active in educational affairs in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Natal. In
1946 he married Joy Daisy Millard and settled in Cape Town, where he worked
with the director of marine research and gave a short course of lectures at
the University of Cape Town. In 1950 he published a note on a
reputed Eurypterid [an order of extinct Arachnids] from the Bokkeveld Group of
South Africa. After returning to Europe he worked on Ordovician starfishes at
the University of Montpellier, France, until 1953. He was a tall, impressive
figure with piercing grey eyes, but much beloved.
