William Archibald Spooner

William Archibald Spooner (22 July 1844 – 29 August 1930) was a British clergyman and long-serving Oxford don. He was most notable for his absent-mindedness, and for supposedly mixing up the syllables in a spoken phrase, with unintentionally comic effect. Such phrases became known as spoonerisms, and are often used humorously. Many spoonerisms have been invented and attributed to Spooner. Life and career William Archibald Spooner was born on 22 July 1844 at 17 Chapel Street, Grosvenor Place, London. He was the eldest son of William Spooner and Jane Lydia Spooner. He was educated at Oswestry School (where he was a contemporary of Frederick Gustavus Burnaby) and New College, Oxford, even though he was not a Wykehamist. He was ordained deacon in the Church of England in 1872 and priest in 1875. In 1878, he became chaplain to Archbishop Archibald Tait. William Spooner married Frances Wycliffe Goodwin on 12 September 1878. He had five children: William Wycliffe, Frances Catharine, Rosemary, Ellen Maxwell, and Agnes Mary.