Aloysius Spotiswoode

Aloysius Anthony St John Spotiswoode (28 May 1916 - 16 December 1994) was an English rationalist philosopher, Christian Socialist and food critic who worked extensively on theories relating to human perception and processing of information. He is best known for his work on the First Glance Theory, and related analogies. He is a descendant of John Spottiswoode, former Archbishop of St Andrews, 17th century primate of all Scotland and noted Scottish historian.
Spotiswoode was known to be a supporter of Oxfordshire County Cricket Club.
Biography
Born in Appleby, Cumbria, to parents who worked as teachers at the nearby Appleby Grammar School, Spotiswoode attended Appleby Primary School and thenceforth Windermere School, both in Cumbria. Later, he gained admission to Regent's Park College, Oxford to read Theology. Having refused to engage in combat during the Second World War, Aloysius returned to Oxford after a brief spell of imprisonment. Later, he took up a research fellowship at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he completed a PhD in Natural Sciences and established a working relationship with The New Statesman, for whom he would continue to write until his death some fifty years later. While completing a further degree in Existential Philosophy at Aberystwyth, Spotiswoode encountered his future wife, Margaret Maunder. The two would marry in 1961 in Primrose Hill, North London.
By 1970, the Spotiswoodes had returned to Oxford, where Aloysius continued to lecture on a part-time basis, twice declining an offer of a fellowsip at Christ Church. Moreover, Aloysius became increasingly politically active, joining the Labour party and declaring himself a Christian Socialist. His articles for The New Statesman steadily became his primary source of income, until in 1980 he produced his first published magazine, On Human Perception And Its Implications for Memory, wherein he outlined the First Glance Theory. Spotiswoode retired to Brightwell Baldwin in rural Oxfordshire in 1987, while retaining a home in Kincardine-on-Forth, Scotland. He died after a short illness in 1994.

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