Leonard James Spencer

Leonard James Spencer (born July 7, 1870 in Worcester , † April 14, 1959 in London ) was a British mineralogist.

Spencer attended Bradford Technical College (where his father was the head of the day school) and from 1886 the Royal College of Science of Ireland in Dublin. He then studied geology, mineralogy and chemistry at the University of Cambridge with top marks in the Tripos exams in natural sciences and winning the Harkness scholarship in 1893. At the end of 1893 he studied in Munich with Paul Heinrich von Groth and from 1894 he was in the mineralogical department of British Museum . There he became Assistant First Class in 1908, Deputy Director (Assistant Keeper) in 1921 and, as successor to GT Prior, Director ( Keeper ) in 1927 . In 1935 he retired.

As a curator, he developed the system of cataloging the mineralogical collection of the British Museum (later the Museum of Natural History in London).

He was particularly concerned with meteorites and tektites , to which he included the silicate glass fragments found in meteorite craters. He studied meteorites on expeditions to southwest Africa and Libya.

From 1900 to 1955 he was editor of Mineralogical Magazine and 1920 to 1955 of Mineralogical Abstracts. From 1936 to 1939 he was president of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland and then from 1949 its secretary for international contacts.

Spencer had been married since 1899 and had a son and two daughters.

Honors and memberships

In 1925 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society . He was an honorary member of the German Mineralogical Society since 1927 .

In 1940 he received the Roebling Medal . In 1934 he became CBE and in 1937 he received the Murchison Medal .

A mineral described by Thomas Leonard Walker in 1916 was named spencerite in his honor .

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Thomas Leonard Walker: Spencerite, a new zinc phosphate from British Columbia , in: Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 18 (1916), pp. 76–81 ( PDF 796.8 kB )

personal data
SURNAME	Spencer, Leonard James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British mineralogist
DATE OF BIRTH	July 7, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH	Worcester
DATE OF DEATH	April 14, 1959
Place of death	London

[1] Thomas Leonard Walker: Spencerite, a new zinc phosphate from British Columbia , in: Mineralogical Magazine , Volume 18 (1916), pp. 76–81 ( PDF 796.8 kB )