Edwin George (‘Ted’) Spinner (1938–2018)

1. Introduction

Edwin George (‘Ted’) Spinner passed away on 23 February 2018 at the age of 80. He was a lifelong palynologist, Carboniferous megaspore expert and stalwart of the Palynology School at the University of Sheffield, England, where he worked all his career.

2. Ted’s early years (1938–1957)

Ted Spinner was born on 27 January 1938, the youngest of seven children, and was raised as part of a farming family in the charming tiny village of Worlingworth, deep in rural Suffolk, south-east England. Worlingworth is located between Bury St Edmunds and Southwold, and had a population of only around 500 in the 1930s. Ted attended the local primary school and passed his ‘eleven-plus’ examination, thereby winning him a place at Eye Grammar School. This secondary school is in a small market town around 11 km north-west of Worlingworth. He and a friend were the first ever children from Worlingworth to pass this entrance examination. Because no pupils from Ted’s primary school had ever achieved this feat, the Local Education Authority (LEA) buses did not connect Worlingworth to Eye Grammar School. The solution to this dilemma was to provide Ted and his fellow pupil with ‘LEA bikes’ with which to cycle the 7-mile journey to and from school! Ted excelled at Eye Grammar School, being made Head Boy and appearing on the school academic honours board for two consecutive years. He also passed his university entrance examinations, the first member of his family to achieve this.

3. Undergraduate student life in Sheffield (1957–1960)

Ted chose to study geology at the University of Sheffield, and travelled north by train in the autumn of 1957. He would have arrived at the old Victoria Station in Sheffield, and Ted’s first impressions of the city would have been the steelworks in Attercliffe and Brightside. The contrast of industrial Sheffield with the John Constablesque landscape of Suffolk he had left only a few hours before could not have been more dramatic. This culture shock that Ted undoubtedly faced would have been experienced by many first-year students from rural areas who arrived in Sheffield during the late 1950s. The city, like the rest of the country, was in the process of rebuilding after World War II. Bomb-damaged buildings were still obvious in many areas, trams trundled their noisy ways in almost every direction and the entire city was subject to severe air pollution from the burgeoning steel industry. The young Ted Spinner must have been truly astounded to be living in a setting which was the absolute polar opposite of his idyllic and peaceful Suffolk home.

Ted spent his undergraduate days in lodgings in the southern Sheffield suburb of Nether Edge at the home of the Collins family. He formed a very strong relationship with his landlady, Mary Collins, which was to survive for over 40 years. Together with his fellow 1957 geology students, Ted graduated in the summer of 1960; he achieved an Upper Second (2.1) Honours Degree.

4. Postgraduate research (1960–1964)

The Sheffield Honours Geology class of 1960 as a whole was extremely committed and engaged with the earth sciences. Consequently, almost half Ted’s fellow graduates decided to continue in science via postgraduate research. Ted initially embarked on a PhD project funded by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research close to his Suffolk heart, a study of the Quaternary palynostratigraphy of the area around Hoxne, Suffolk, which is about 37 km east of Thetford in southern Norfolk. This research project had substantial difficulties from the outset, with problems accessing suitable samples and very poor palynomorph recovery from the material Ted had been able to collect.

Fortunately, however, a suitable solution rapidly emerged to Ted’s travails. The then Head of the Department of Geology at Sheffield, Professor Leslie R. Moore (1912–2003), suggested that Ted work on Carboniferous megaspores under the supervision of himself and the palaeobotanist Robert H. Wagner (1927–2018), who had been appointed at Sheffield during 1960 with the task of reviving palaeobotany in the UK. Bob Wagner, who incidentally passed away only three days before Ted (Cleal et al. 2018), was at that time undertaking research on the palaeobotany of the Middle Pennsylvanian (Asturian/Moscovian) Warwickshire Group of the Forest of Dean coalfield between the Severn and Wye valleys in western Gloucestershire, south-west England (Trotter 1942; Moore 1954; Wagner and Spinner 1972; Waters et al. 2007, 2011). Ted readily agreed to research the megaspores and miospores from the Pennsylvanian successions in the Forest of Dean being studied by Bob Wagner. Ted had a ready-made initial sample set and these were very productive; thus, Ted’s research path on Carboniferous megaspores and miospores was set for life. Throughout his career, however, he concentrated largely on megaspores (Supplemental material).

During the early 1960s most of the adits and mines in the Forest of Dean coalfield were readily accessible, and Ted took detailed sample collections from all the relevant successions exposed at that time. However, the extraction of the megaspores was a relatively undeveloped technique at the time and Ted had to experiment. The palynology laboratory on the top floor of the Applied Science Building, overlooking St George’s Church, on Mappin Street naturally operated with the best contemporary health and safety standards. Despite this, many of Ted’s colleagues worried about the prodigious amounts of bromine he used! Ted shared the laboratory with a diverse group of palynologists including Ralph Coffey, Barrie Dale, Charles Downie, George Hart, M.A. Husain, Tony Jenkins, Dick Lister, Leonard Love, Alan Marshall, David Mishell, Leslie Moore, Roger Neves, Bernard Owens, John Richardson, Frank Spode, Herbert Sullivan, John Varker, David Wall and Graham Williams (Sarjeant 1984; Wellman 2005). Most working days ended at around 10 pm before adjourning to the Hallamshire public house around the corner on West Street. Most of the PhD students in this group had acquired motorbikes for fieldwork. Ted Spinner’s motorcycle of choice was a monstrous BSA 650 cc; no doubt Ted in leathers astride this beast was a truly awesome sight.

It was not, of course, all about work. Perhaps because he now lived in the city that gave the beautiful game to the world (Farnsworth 1995), Ted decided early on in his postgraduate days to become an association football referee. He qualified first as a linesman (now assistant referee) and then as a referee able to officiate at Sheffield and Hallamshire Football Association Sunday League matches. Local football played according to Ted Spinner’s interpretation of the rules did not always meet with the approval of players and spectators, and so the BSA 650 cc was clearly a sound idea! Football refereeing duties notwithstanding, Ted worked very hard on his PhD, and was duly awarded this degree in 1964 for a thesis entitled Megaspores and miospores from the Forest of Dean Coalfield. This was partially published as Spinner (1965).

5. A scientific career at the University of Sheffield

Immediately after obtaining his PhD in 1964 Ted was appointed a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at Sheffield, supervised by Leslie Moore, to work on the organic remains in the Precambrian Nonesuch Shale Formation (Oronto Group) from the Lake Superior Basin in Ontonagon County, Michigan, USA. The Nonesuch Shale Formation is a lacustrine siliciclastic succession of Middle Proterozoic age containing substantial organic carbon which has been interpreted as being evidence of photosynthesis (Meinschein et al. 1964). Ted was a co-author of Moore et al. (1969), who reported an ecosystem of fungal remains and apparently saprophytically degraded palynomorphs from this important and highly unusual lithostratigraphical unit. During his tenure as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Ted continued his work on Carboniferous megaspores. This included a productive collaboration with Mavis Butterworth (1927–1996) who, at the time, was also a Research Fellow in the Department of Geology (Butterworth and Spinner 1967). Directly after the post-doc ended in 1965, Ted was appointed as a Research Assistant. He was subsequently promoted to lecturer in 1971 and remained on the tenured staff at Sheffield until his retirement in 1997.

Ted lectured in geology to the undergraduates and also on the famous Sheffield MSc course in palynology that was instigated in 1967 by Leslie Moore and ran until 2001. This course was a one-year programme comprising taught modules, largely by Charles Downie and Roger Neves, with a final examination, and practical work including an original research dissertation. For most of its life it was approved and funded by the Natural Environment Research Council as a part of its range of vocational postgraduate awards. During his time in Sheffield, Ted interacted with all of the > 300 palynology students (> 200 MSc and > 100 PhD) who graduated through the Sheffield Palynology School (Spinner 1986; Wellman 2005). Ted was an incredibly popular lecturer whom students naturally gravitated towards. He adopted an open-door policy and was a first port of call for students for academic advice or to air their concerns and problems, which Ted would solve in a most genial manner. Ted defused difficulties for students so effectively that the vast majority of these cases never troubled the more formal departmental hierarchy. It is not too surprising that Ted’s extremely skilful pastoral care of students led to roles working with students in the university halls of residence. Between 1965 and 1973, Ted served as a Tutor at Earnshaw Hall. Later, between 1975 and 1983, Ted was Warden of Tapton Hall. This was a role in which he was particularly successful, operating as an efficient director but still accessible and available to the students.

Charles Downie and Roger Neves ran the Sheffield MSc course in palynology during the 1970s and early 1980s; both retired in 1984 and Ted became course director. He duly set about invigorating and modernising the course in order to ensure its survival through what were extremely challenging times in the UK higher education sector. Specifically, the University Grant Committee Earth Sciences Review recommended closure of the Department of Geology at Sheffield in 1987. A number of near-simultaneous staff retirements immediately prior to this exercise in scrutiny, which was not repeated for other subjects, had made the department somewhat vulnerable. As a result, during 1988, the Palynology School was reorganised. Despite the potential closure of the Department of Geology, the MSc and PhD programmes in palynology were thriving and graduates continued to be in great demand. The Centre for Palynological Studies (CPS) was instigated with Ted as its first director. Alongside the CPS, an Industrial Palynology Unit was informally set up (Wellman 2005). Ted ran the CPS and undertook the majority of the teaching and supervision. He was helped in particular at that time by Ken Dorning and Wolfgang Wille together with numerous honorary/visiting lecturers, most of whom were Sheffield graduates. The Department of Geology was finally closed in the summer of 1990 and the CPS was transferred to the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences. Ted had a significant boost in 1991 when the Paleogene palynology expert David Jolley was appointed by the CPS as a new lecturer in palynology. This appointment eased Ted’s administrative and teaching duties, and increased the breadth of stratigraphical coverage in the CPS.

Ted formally retired in 1997. It is an indication of the esteem and respect for him within the community that a retirement dinner for ex-Sheffield palynologists was organised at Tapton Hall by Tony Loy and Pat Mellor. This event was attended by over 100 former colleagues and students, including some who had travelled from as far away as Canada and the USA.

Ted also diligently and generously served the broader geological community, involving himself in the development and organisation of the teaching of geology in secondary schools in the UK. Between 1970 and 1975, Ted was responsible for the introduction of geology teaching within the Postgraduate Certificate in Education in the Department of Education at Sheffield; this comprised a novel, fieldwork-based approach. Subsequently, he became the Chair of Examiners for the Northern Universities Joint Matriculation Board Geology Advanced Level course, studied by 16–18 year olds. He was responsible to the board for the development of the syllabus, and for the setting and marking of examination papers.

In addition to his administration and teaching duties, Ted was also a highly successful scientist; he supervised many MSc, MPhil and PhD projects. Moreover, he published numerous scientific papers including collaborations with colleagues such as Mavis Butterworth, David Jolley, Bob Wagner and Charles Wellman, and postgraduate students such as Steve Brindley and Nick Turner (Supplemental data). These papers were largely on Carboniferous megaspores, but also tackled topics deriving from postgraduate student research projects. Ted worked mainly on the Carboniferous megaspores of the UK; Spinner (1969) and Jolley and Spinner (1989) were his only ventures outside Europe and on marine palynomorphs, respectively. He also undertook voluntary work for scientific societies. This included a stint as the Newsletter Editor for the British Micropalaeontological Society (now The Micropalaeontological Society) between 1979 and 1983, and he sat on the Council of the Yorkshire Geological Society (1983–1985).

Ted Spinner will be remembered with great affection by all the students he encountered at the University of Sheffield, be that in his capacity as hall tutor/warden, lecturer or supervisor. Ted could be old fashioned in certain respects, but in others he was very much on the right side of history. For example, he much preferred to adopt a lively tone in scientific writing, thereby avoiding the passive tense and using pronouns such as ‘we’ and ‘our’. This more dynamic and sprightly style is now the new norm in science writing in North America, and is rapidly becoming much more common in Europe. All his students and colleagues will recall his innate charm as well as his very forthright and robust views, stridently expressed. Another trademark was his trusty pipe charged with highly aromatic tobacco. The pipe was always with him, lit or unlit, and was used to great effect as an aid to gesticulation when he offered his wise counsel (see the photograph above). The Sheffield Palynology School owes Ted Spinner a huge debt of gratitude for a lifetime of dedication.

Bernard Owens, Michael Romano, Charles H. Wellman
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield,
Alfred Denny Building, Western Bank, Sheffield SIO 2TN, UK

James B. Riding
British Geological Survey, Keyworth,Nottingham NG12 5GG, UK
[email protected]