William Webb Spicer (6 September 1820, Esher, Surrey – 28 April 1879, Notting Hill, London) was an Anglican rector and amateur botanist, economic entomologist, and naturalist.
[2] In 1846 he was ordained an Anglican priest at the Chapel of Farnham Castle in Surrey, by the Bishop of Winchester Charles Sumner.
[1] Spicer's interest in botany, and in particular ferns, is recorded in correspondence to Sir William Hooker, the then Director of Kew.
[1]While living with his wife from February 1874 to March 1878 in Tasmania, Spicer engaged in church duties and philanthropy, gave lectures on natural history, collected plant specimens, and published several research papers, as well as A Handbook of the Plants of Tasmania.
The aim of the author in assisting to popularise a knowledge of Tasmanian plants amongst the colonists will, no doubt, be furthered by the appearance of this little volume.