Researching John Spence

Spence was educated at Queen's University, Belfast and worked as a building and civil engineering contractor, merchant banker and farmer.

Spence contested Wakefield in 1964, and Sheffield Heeley in 1966. He was Member of Parliament for Sheffield Heeley from 1970 to 1974, Thirsk and Malton from 1974 to 1983, and Ryedale from 1983 until he died in office in 1986 aged 65. He was a member of the Speaker's panel of chairmen.

Dr. Spence is the director of the Stroke Prevention & Atherosclerosis Research Centre (SPARC), a unit of the Robarts Research Institute. With Maria Dicicco, RVT, he pioneered the measurement of total plaque area (TPA) in a patient's carotid artery using ultrasound technology. The ability to measure TPA gives doctors the ability to treat, and measure the change in, the amount of plaque in a patient's arteries and has given researchers the ability to measure the effectiveness of new drug treatment therapies for stroke prevention. in high-risk patients with narrowing of the carotid arteries, the process of "Treating Arteries" was associated with a >80% reduction in the 2-year risk of strokes and heart attacks. doi: 10.1001/archneurol.2009.289. PubMed PMID: 20008646 Dr. Spence is recognized as "The Father of Total Plaque Area Measurement" and the importance of TPA measurement is that, in Dr Spence's words, "We can now treat arteries instead of just treating risk factors".

The family was struggling to make ends meet, so after some seven months, he and his brother went farming, without much success, and he moved to Adelaide in 1845, joining either the Bank of Adelaide or the Bank of South Australia, where he remained for seven years. He was afterwards for five years official assignee and curator of intestate estates, then in 1856 accountant in the Railway Department, and from 1859 to 1864 Official Assignee and Curator of Intestate Estates. but left that office for the management of the English and Scottish Bank (soon to become English, Scottish and Australian Chartered Bank) which he held till 1878. Between around 1879 and 1881 he was involved with Arthur Harvey in land development at The Grange and East Adelaide.

He was elected a member of the legislative council in 1881, second on the poll with Henry Ayers, W. C. Buik, James Rankine, John Pickering, and R. A. Tarlton. He was Chief Secretary in the Downer Government from June to October 1885, when he retired to take the position of Commissioner of Public Works. In June 1886 he again took office as chief secretary, retiring the following month. On 5 February 1896, he was appointed one of the first five trustees of the State Bank, and was chairman of the board at the time of his death.

Spence was born on 15 July 1929, on the island of Saint Vincent. He moved to Trinidad when he was 11 years old. He attended Queen's Royal College and the University of Bristol, where he obtained his Bachelor of Science in botany in 1951. Spence then completed a post-graduate diploma in Agricultural Science at the University of Cambridge in 1952 and a second diploma in Tropical Agriculture in 1953 from the Trinidad Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in 1953. He earned a doctorate in 1961 from the University of Bristol.

Spence served as the head of the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of the West Indies in Saint Augustine until his retirement in 1989. He then became the head of the Cocoa Research Unit (CRU), which he is credited with its expansion into an internationally recognized center.

Within the field of botany, Spence uncovered the importance of the polyphenol oxidase enzyme, which helps cocoa pods resist Phytophthora palmivora, which causes black pod disease. He also developed several varieties of dwarf pigeon peas which can be harvested by machine, instead of by hand.

Spence was the recipient of the gold Chaconia Medal in 1980 and the NIHERST Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. He became a fellow of the Fellow of the Caribbean Academy of Science in 1990.

John Spence died of a heart attack on 6 March 2013, at the age of 83. He was survived by his wife, Yolande Spence, and their sons, John Malcolm Spence, Louis Spence and Richard Spence. His funeral was held at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Sports and Education Centre in St Augustine.

The origin of the term "frogman" can be traced directly to John Spence. In an interview with maritime historian Erick Simmel, Spence explained that frogman first came into use while he was training in a green, waterproof suit. Spence recalled, "Someone saw me surfacing one day and yelled out, 'Hey, frogman!' The name stuck for all of us." Spence and the other men trained in underwater close combat techniques, demolition and stealth in order to destroy underwater emplacements and enemy ships during World War II. Spence trained under a medical student, Dr. Christian Lambertsen, who developed the United States Navy frogmen's rebreathers for underwater warfare.

Spence was initially sent to the United Kingdom after training. His original mission was to attack a German submarine base in France. However, Spence's original mission was cancelled for fear that the attack on the submarine base might accidentally alert Nazi Germany to the impending D-Day invasion of Normandy. Instead, Spence and several British commandos were secretly sent to France several times to rescue stranded airmen and meet with the French Resistance.

He was next sent to the Bahamas, where he trained combat swimmers to prepare for fighting against Japan in the Pacific Theater. Spence was soon deployed to the Pacific, where he served on the USS Wadsworth (DD-516). He manned a forward gun battery during the Battle of Iwo Jima in an effort to provide cover for U.S. combat swimmers. He also helmed the gun battery against kamikaze pilots during the long Battle of Okinawa in 1945.

Spence was unable to tell friends and family of his role in the frogmen until the late 1980s, when files on the group were finally declassified.

Spence remained with the United States Navy until his retirement in 1961. He worked as a systems testing engineer at the Lockheed Corporation after leaving the Navy. He lived in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles and later resided in Oroville, California. He moved to Bend, Oregon, after the death of his first wife in the 2000s.

John Spence died at an elderly care facility in Bend, Oregon, on October 29, 2013, at the age of 95. He was survived by four daughters - Genevieve Ross, Yvonne Romano, Margo Kirkwood and Sharon Ogden.