Will Spens

Sir William Spens, CBE was an eminent educationalist in the mid twentieth century, academic and Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Contents

Life

Born in Glasgow on 31 May 1882,[1] one of four sons of John Spens and Sophia Nicol, Spens was educated at Rugby[2] and King's College, Cambridge, graduating in natural sciences. Elected a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1907, he spent the rest of his working life in Cambridge, apart from wartime service between 1915 and 1918 with the Foreign Office, for which he was awarded the CBE in 1919, was made a chevalier of the Légion d’honneur by the French and appointed an officer of the Crown of Italy.

Elected Master of Corpus in 1927 [3] he was Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1931 to 1933 and then chaired the consultative committee of the Board of Education (known in retrospect as the Spens Report[4]) which recommended the tri-partite split of secondary schooling into grammar, technical and modern varieties.[5]

During the Second World War he was Regional Commissioner for Civil Defence for the Eastern Region, which prompted and exacerbated rumours that the cellars of Corpus extend across (and indeed further than) the entire college campus and that the college was to be used as the centre of operations for East Anglia in the event of a German occupation.[6][7]

Spens retired in 1952.

Personal

Spens married Dorothy Teresa, daughter of John Richardson Selwyn[8] in 1912; they had 4 children; a son and three daughters, one of whom died in infancy.

Spens died on 1 November 1962.[9]

See also

Text of the Spens Report

Notes

  1. ^ 1962 Burke’s Peerage p 1368
  2. ^ “Who was Who” 1897-2007 London, A & C Black, 2007 ISBN 9780199540877
  3. ^ The Times, Wednesday, 3 October 1928; p. 21; Issue 44701; col A University News, New Term Begun At Cambridge
  4. ^ Education Resources Information Center
  5. ^ “A History of English Education, from 1760” Barnard, H.C: London, University of London Press, 1961
  6. ^ http://www.britainexpress.com/counties/cambridgeshire/az/cambridge/corpus-christi-college.htm
  7. ^ http://www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/about-corpus/maps-and-tours/take-a-virtual-tour/216
  8. ^ Peter Gosden, ‘Spens, Sir William [Will] (1882–1962)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004;
  9. ^ Sir Will Spens Servant Of College And State The Times Friday, 2 November 1962; p. 15; Issue 55538; col A
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Spens, William (1882-1962)". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 

Academic offices
Preceded by
Edmund Courtenay Pearce		 Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
1927-1952		 Succeeded by
George Paget Thomson
Academic offices
Preceded by
Allen Beville Ramsay		 Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge
1931-1933		 Succeeded by
John Forbes Cameron