Douglas Spalding
Douglas Alexander Spalding (14 July 1841 – 1877) was a British biologist who studied animal behaviour and worked in the home of Viscount Amberley. Biography Spalding was born in Islington in London in 1841, the only son of Jessey Fraser and Alexander Mitchell Spalding, office clerk. Not long after his birth, his parents moved to Aberdeenshire, Scotland where they had previously lived. While working as a slater in Aberdeen, the philosopher Alexander Bain persuaded the University of Aberdeen to allow him to attend courses without charge. He studied philosophy and literature, and after a year left for London. He trained as a lawyer. But when he contracted tuberculosis, he travelled in Europe in hopes of finding a cure, and in Avignon met John Stuart Mill and through him Viscount Amberley (son of the former British prime minister Lord John Russell, by then 1st Earl Russell). He became tutor to Viscount Amberley's children at Cleddon Hall, Monmouthshire, including perhaps the young Bertrand Russell, and also carried on an intermittent affair with Viscountess Amberley. After the Lord Amberley's death in 1876, Spalding returned to the continent and remained there until his death the following year. Spalding carried out some experiments on animal