The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Spencer, Professor Walter Baldwin
Spencer, Professor Walter Baldwin, M. A., Professor of Biology in the University of Melbourne, is the son of Reuben Spencer, of Stretford, Lancashire, and was educated primarily at Owens College, Manchester, and at the London University. Being subsequently elected to an open science scholarship at Exeter College, Oxford, he matriculated there on Oct. 20th, 1881, retaining his scholarship till 1885. He was also awarded the Dalton Natural History Prize in the College for Botany and Comparative Anatomy. He graduated B.A. in 1884 being placed in the first class in the Honour Schools of natural science. Subsequent to taking his degree, he was appointed assistant to the Linacre Professor of Human and Comparative Anatomy at Oxford, and in March 1886 was elected to a Fellowship in Lincoln College, Oxford, which he held till his departure for Australia in Feb. 1887, having been appointed in the previous month to fill the Chair of Biology in the University of Melbourne. Prof. Spencer has published seven or eight valuable papers on subjects cognate to the particular branch of scientific study to which he has devoted himself.