from 1908 to 1912, spencer studied at the slade school of fine art in london, under henry tonks and others. his contemporaries at the slade included dora carrington, maxwell gordon lightfoot, mark gertler, paul nash, edward wadsworth, isaac rosenberg and david bomberg. so profound was his attachment to cookham that most days he would take the train back home in time for tea. it even became his nickname: his fellow student christopher r. w. nevinson dubbed him "cookham", a name which spencer himself took to using for a time. while at the slade, spencer allied with a short-lived group who called themselves the "neo-primitives" which was centred on bomberg and william roberts.