Sir James Calvert Spence

Professor Sir James Calvert Spence, MC & Bar (1892–1954), M.D., D. Sc., F. R. C. P., was a decorated war hero and a paediatrician who was a pioneer in the field of social paediatrics. He was a founding member of the British Paediatric Association.

Spence was born in Amble, Northumberland on 19 March 1892, the fourth son and seventh child of an architect (David Magnus Spence) and his wife Isabella Turnbull. After being educated at Elmfield College, York, he attended the Durham College of Medicine in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Spence went into the Royal Army Medical Corps. He served in the Gallipoli campaign, Egypt, and the Western Front. Captain Spence received the Military Cross (MC) for "conspicuous gallantry" and "devotion to duty" in attending wounded while under fire. Later, then Acting Major Spence received a bar to his MC for his actions at Oisy-le-Verger from 28 September to 2 October 1918.

After World War I, Spence worked as a house physician at the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) in Newcastle upon Tyne and then moved on to work as a casualty officer at Great Ormond Street in London. He returned to Newcastle in 1922, where he took up the post of medical registrar and chemical pathologist at the RVI. He also joined the medical staff of a day nursery, in West Parade, Newcastle, which had been set up by a local wealthy lady to look after the children of munitions workers. The day nursery eventually became the Newcastle Babies' Hospital and provided the foundation for much of Spence's future work.

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