Catalogue description British Museum (Natural History): Department of Mineralogy: Correspondence and Papers of L J Spencer

Leonard James Spencer (1870-1959) was born at Worcester on 7 July 1870, and educated in Bradford and at the Royal College of Science, Dublin. Spencer then moved to Cambridge, where he won the Harkness scholarship for geology in 1893, and studied mineralogy for the first time. He studied briefly in Munich under Paul Groth before taking up an appointment as Assistant in the Department of Mineralogy on 1 January 1894.

During his forty one years at the Museum Spencer wrote a great many papers on minerals, including gemstones, and on meteorites, including important papers on craters. He translated two textbooks from German into English, and wrote two useful texts of his own. Spencer's chief contribution in the Museum was the establishment of a system of registering and labelling the mineral collection, and he took great pains over the accurate documentation of specimens. His other great work was his editorship of Mineralogical Magazine from 1900 until 1955, and his preparation of Mineralogical Abstracts from 1920 until the same date.

Spencer did not travel extensively, though he attended conferences overseas and, at the age of sixty four, visited the Libyan Desert in search of natural glass. Spencer was promoted to the rank of Assistant Keeper in 1921, and Keeper of Mineralogy in 1927. He retired in 1935. He was elected FRS in 1925 and awarded the CBE in 1934.