MEMOIR 
x 5 
vigour until suddenly he was spent. This is sufficiently 
proved by the Journal with its calm entries that never show 
sign of despondency or of failing powers right up to the last. 
The investigation which Charles Darwin as a young man 
had to leave incomplete, Baldwin Spencer, though an old 
man, meant to carry through if he could. Fate proved too 
strong after all; but it was a grand and gallant finish. Thus 
he rounded off the task and ambition of his life—to explore 
to the world’s end. 
Walter Baldwin Spencer was born at Stretford in Lan¬ 
cashire on June 23, i860. He was the second son in a 
family of thirteen, consisting of six sons and seven daughters. 
His father, Reuben Spencer, himself one of a family of 
twelve, had left his native Derbyshire for Manchester as a 
lad, and by his own unaided efforts had advanced in the 
service of the firm that he originally joined until he became 
Chairman of its Board of Directors. His mother’s surname 
was Circuit, as I learn from the last letter that he sent me, 
not long before his death, from the Magellan Straits: 
‘Out here in Chile no stranger is allowed within their gates, at least 
not for a longer period than eight days, without securing from the 
police a ‘carnet’—or kind of little booklet containing a photo, identifica¬ 
tion number, and finger (thumb) print. When catechizing me I noticed 
that they paid special attention to my mother, and on my carnet my 
name, or at least that under which I am known to the police, is given 
as Senor Walter Spencer-Circuit, the last name being my mother’s 
maiden name. It made me think that I was back amongst the maternal- 
descent tribes of Central Australia. 
With his brothers, young Spencer attended Old Trafford 
School, a private institution of not more than a hundred boys, 
that lay conveniently within half a mile of the paternal door. 
Small as it was, this establishment must have been conducted 
on sound lines, since two of Spencer’s fellow-pupils were 
destined to share with him the title of F.R.S., while several 
