Leonard James Spencer

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

Spencer attended the Bradford Technical College ( where his father was head of the school day ) and from 1886 the Royal College of Science of Ireland in Dublin. Then he studied geology, mineralogy and chemistry at Cambridge University with honors in the Tripos examinations in science and winning the Harkness Fellowship in 1893. Late 1893, he studied in Munich with Paul Heinrich von Groth and from 1894 he was in the Mineralogy Department of British Museum. He was assistant in 1908, First Class, 1921 Deputy Director ( Assistant Keeper ) and as successor by GT Prior 1927 Director ( Keeper ). In 1935, he went into retirement.

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 dealt in particular with meteorites and tektites, which he counted the silicate glass fragments that were found in meteorite craters. He studied meteorites on expeditions to South West Africa and Libya.

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

Spencer was 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 since 1927 Honorary Member of the German Mineralogical Society.

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

One of Thomas Leonard Walker in 1916 described mineral received his honor the name Spencerit.