Biography
He was born in 1867 in the Stoke Newington district of London to William Spensley and Elizabeth Alice Richardson. Although he was born and grew up in London, the Spensley family were originally from the Swaledale area in Yorkshire.
Richardson Spensley had the opportunity to travel far and wide as an adult. Amongst the most keen interests which he had acquired whilst travelling were oriental religion, languages (he was versed in Greek and Sanskrit), boxing and football. In addition to working as a doctor, he spent some time as a correspondent for the British newspaper the Daily Mail.
Read more about this topic: James Richardson Spensley
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“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
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