William Wycliffe Spooner

William Wycliffe Spooner (29 March 1882 – c. 17 September 1967) was the son of Dr. William Archibald Spooner and Frances Wycliffe nee Goodwin. He created the Spooner Dryer and Engineering Company in 1932 in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, England.

Personal life

Oil Painting presented to William Wycliffe Spooner on his 70th birthday by his employees. Inscription reads "Presented by the employees on 23 December 1952, In commemoration of his 70th birthday as a token of esteem and affection".

Born in Oxford in 1882, William Spooner studied engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge before beginning an apprenticeship with The British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in Manchester in 1902. On 23 November 1905 he received his certificate of completion, recognising him as "competent to follow his career as a mechanical engineer". Various engineering jobs followed, including one studying Diesel engines in Germany before he became an associate member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1910.

He married Marian Edleston, the daughter of a Halifax, West Yorkshire mill owner in 1920 and they began living in Ilkley, a town in West Yorkshire. Their only son William ("Billy") Edleston Spooner was born in 1921. Marian died in 1938 and his son Billy was killed on a bombing raid

The Spooner Dryer and Engineering Company

William Spooner started his company after detecting a niche for the production and sale of industrial drying equipment. His intent was to increase the speed and efficiency of industrial drying. He achieved this by applying the principles of forced convection to industrial drying and textile applications.

The Spooner Dryer and Engineering Company started in a one-room building in Shipley, West Yorkshire, in 1932 when Spooner was fifty years old. He employed two men, as well as a 16-year-old-school leaver as his secretary – Arthur B Rooks – who later became a director of the company. Initially, the company emphasized improving the textile industry's drying processes; later it became involved with the paper trade. After three years the company outgrew its premises in Shipley and Spooner bought part of a small mill in Yeadon and relocated his company there. The beginning of World War II delayed the company's expansion but after the war the expansion continued.

Spooner was a funder of local causes, and in 1962 established his charitable trust: W.W. Spooner Charitable Trust.

Spooner and his wife Mercie were collectors of British drawings and watercolours. Their collection was bequeathed jointly to the Courtauld Institute of Art upon his death, and was published in the book The Spooner Collection of British Watercolours in 2006.