Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer, university scientist and administrator, anthropologist and connoisseur, was born at Stretford, Lancashire, England. Educated at Old Trafford School and at the Manchester School of Art, Spencer's interest in art and sketching was lifelong, and was revealed in his competence as a scientific draftsman and illustrator. In 1879, Spencer inspired by Milnes Marshall, a Darwinian disciple, he became a evolutionary biologist. 'After winning a scholarship to Exeter College', Spencer entered the University of Oxford in 1881, where he studied science. After graduating from Oxford in 1884, Spencer became a laboratory demonstrator, and his research was built upon the advancements in microscopy and histological techniques, studying parietal (pineal) eye in reptiles were his major projects.
In 1886, Spencer applied for the foundation chair of biology at the University of Melbourne, and was appointed on 12 January 1887. In 1894, Spencer was recruited as an zoologist and photographer by the Horn Scientific exploring expedition to central Australia; it was this expedition that rekindled his anthropological interest. In 1896, Spencer joined F. J. Gillen, an Alice Springs postmaster, in an ethnographically fieldwork study that resulted in their work Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899). When the Commonwealth government assumed control of the Northern Territory in 1911, Spencer led the Preliminary Scientific Expedition. Impressed by their findings, the Government appointed Spencer as special commissioner and chief protector of Aborigines in Darwin.
Further ethnographic works by Spencer included Native Tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia (1914); The Arunta: A Study of a Stone Age People (2 vols, 1927), and Wanderings in Wild Australia (2 vols, 1928).
