Eva Dykes Spicer

Eva Dykes Spicer (1898 – 1974) was an English missionary educator in China. She spent twenty-eight years as a teacher at Ginling College, Nanjing, negotiating the turbulence of the Second Sino-Japanese war and the increasing hostility against the teaching of religion and against foreign residents in China. She then worked as the principal of a women's school in Nigeria.

Early life and training Spicer was born on 29 May 1898 at Lancaster Gate, London, the ninth of eleven children of Sir Albert Spicer, 1st Baronet, a Liberal MP, and his wife Jessie, née Dykes.

Educated at Norland Place School and St Leonards boarding school in St Andrews, in 1917 she studied history at Somerville College, Oxford. At university she was involved in the Student Christian Movement and was elected Senior Student of her college in her final year. she applied to the London Missionary Society soon after graduating. She received teacher training at the London Day Training College and at Mansfield College before departing for China in August 1923.