Tim Lees-Spalding

Tim Lees-Spalding
Tim Lees-Spalding
Birth name	Ian Jaffery Lees-Spalding
Born	16 June 1920; King's Commendation for Brave Conduct

CB (16 June 1920 – 1 July 2001) was a senior marine engineer in the Royal Navy

before becoming Administrator of the London International Film School and co-founder of the Macmillan and Silk Cut Nautical Almanac.

Early life

Lees-Spalding, always known as Tim, was born in Ealing, London, on 16 June 1920, and educated at Blundell's School in Tiverton and the Royal Naval Engineering College.

Naval career

Lees-Spalding had joined the

King's Commendation for Brave Conduct for digging out with his bare hands a woman trapped beneath a pile of rubble after a German night air raid on Plymouth. A year later, he was awarded a Royal Lifesaving Institution Medal for rescuing a drowning man from the sea off Teignmouth

.

In 1943 Lees-Spalding went to sea in the anti-aircraft cruiser

Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily

in July.

Following the

Edward Stettinius

.

Lees-Spalding later served in submarines, before being promoted to commander in 1952; this was followed by service in HMS Cleopatra (a sister-ship to Sirius) and the new destroyer HMAS Duchess.

As the Commander (Executive Officer) of the Royal Naval Engineering College, by now located at Manadon near Plymouth, Lees-Spalding was the first non-Gunnery Officer to preside over the Queen's Birthday Parade on Plymouth Hoe in 1959. He subsequently returned to sea as the Commander (E) of the new cruiser HMS Tiger in the Far East.

Promoted to

Companion of the Order of the Bath

in 1973.

Later career

After leaving the Royal Navy in 1974, Lees-Spalding was appointed Administrator of the London International Film School. Despite no previous experience in the field, he quickly sorted out the school's financial problems.

In 1981 Lees-Spalding co-founded the Macmillan and Silk Cut Nautical Almanac, which became a handbook for Britain's yachtsmen, and Lees-Spalding remained editor until 1992.

Sources

^ England and Wales, Death Index, 1989–2018

Obituary of Rear-Adml Tim Lees-Spalding, The Daily Telegraph, 28 August 2001. [1]

[death-1] England and Wales, Death Index, 1989–2018