{{short description|English explorer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2025}} {{Use British English|date=January 2018}} {{Infobox person |name = Michael Spender |image = |caption = |birth_name = Michael Alfred Spender |birth_date = {{Birth date|1906|11|11|df=yes}} |birth_place = Kensington, London, England |death_date = {{Death date and age|1945|05|05|1906|11|11|df=yes}} |death_place = near Süchteln, Nazi Germany |death_cause = Killed in action |other_names = |known_for = Explorer and surveyor |occupation = }} '''Michael Alfred Spender''' (11 November 1906 – 5 May 1945) was an English explorer, surveyor, a leader in photo interpretation in the Second World War, and an RAF squadron leader.
== Personal life == He was the eldest son of Harold Spender and Violet, and a brother of the poet Stephen Spender and the artist Humphrey Spender.<ref name =DNB>[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/57986?docPos=1 John Sutherland, ''Sir Stephen Harold Spender'', Oxford Online Dictionary of National Biography, 2004]</ref><ref name =RGS>[https://web.archive.org/web/20030702171454/http://imagingeverest.rgs.org/Units/73.html The Royal Geographical Society, Imaging Everest, Michael Spender]</ref>
He graduated from Balliol College, Oxford University, with a double first in Engineering, and then worked as a surveyor on the Great Barrier Reef from 1928 to 1929 and in East Greenland in 1932 and 1933. In 1935 he joined an expedition to the Himalayas and mapped 26 peaks over 26,000 feet.<ref name=RGS/>
In 1933 he married his first wife Erika Haarmann, and their son John-Christopher was born in 1936. In the late 1930s the artist Nancy Sharp (the first wife of William Coldstream and the lover of Louis MacNeice), fell in love with Spender. Michael and Nancy divorced their respective spouses, and they were married in 1943. Their son Philip was born the same year.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1310454/Nancy-Spender.html|title=Nancy Spender|date=27 June 2001|work=The Daily Telegraph}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/jun/25/guardianobituaries.arts|title=Obituary: Nancy Spender|work=The Guardian|date=25 June 2001 |last1=Margetson |first1=John }}</ref>
Spender was regarded as arrogant and tactless,<ref name =RGS/> and he had a difficult relationship with his brother Stephen.
== Death == On 3 May 1945 Michael was a passenger in an Avro Anson aircraft, and he was seriously injured when it crashed near Süchteln in Germany; he died on 5 May. Stephen was deeply affected, and he wrote the elegy ''Seascape'' for his brother.<ref name="DNB" />
He was buried at Eindhoven General Cemetery at Woensel in the Netherlands.<ref name="cwgc">{{cite web|url=http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2618148|title=CWGC – Casualty Details|author=Reading Room Manchester|work=cwgc.org}}</ref>
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Spender, Michael}} Category:1906 births Category:1945 deaths Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Category:English explorers Category:Royal Air Force squadron leaders Category:Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War II Category:Royal Air Force personnel killed in World War II Category:People from Kensington Category:Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in Germany Category:Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1945 Category:Military personnel from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Michael