Spencer Carpenter

Spencer Cecil Carpenter (3 November 1877 – 19 August 1959) was an Anglican priest and author. He was the Dean of Exeter in the Church of England from 1935 to 1950.

Carpenter was educated at University College School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He was ordained in 1903 and began his ecclesiastical career with a curacy at St Paul's, Walworth. He was successively Vice-Principal of Westcott House, Cambridge; Warden of the Gonville and Caius College Mission in Battersea then Fellow and Tutor of Selwyn College, Cambridge. From 1922 to 1930 he was Vicar and Rural Dean of St Peter's, Bolton.

In 1929, he became an Honorary Chaplain to the King. In 1930, he left Selwyn to become simultaneously Master of the Temple in London and Professor of Theology at Queen's College, Harley Street. He retained all three positions until his appointment to the Deanery in 1935. In the same year, he also became Provost of King's College, Taunton, a position he held until 1953.

Works A Parson’s Defence, 1912 Christianity according to St Luke, 1919 A Large Room, 1923 The Anglican Tradition, 1928 The Church and Politics, 1934 The Bible View of Life, 1937 Faith in Time of War, 1940 Exeter Cathedral, 1942 Life of Bishop Winnington-Ingram, 1949 The Church in England, 597–1688, 1954 Duncan-Jones of Chichester, 1956 Eighteenth Century Church and People, 1959