CaA "Mad Hatter" who always travelled with a pile of hat boxes, usually sported a cravat,and drove a pale blue Rolls Royce, the "Galloping Major" introduced a new professionalism and polish into the Australian saleroom and linked it with the rest of the world.
In 1968 Spowers persuaded the board of Christie's in London to open an office in Sydney and begin holding auctions in Australia.
The Melbourne born, Geelong Grammar School-educated Major whose soldierly precision won him a place as a cataloguer in the London book department had the ear of the Christie's board because of a new distinction.'
He was helping make Christie's a serious rival to Sotheby's in the then much more rare book world.
Big libraries were then still there to be dispersed. Britain's lords and earls traditionally had sent their books to Sotheby's and their art to Christie's.
Both firm's were beginning to expand internationally in moves which would give Sotheby's South Africa and Canada while first Sotheby's and then Christie's in competion with it competed for the US market.
One of the rivals Christie's took on Australia, Geoff K Gray said this expansion in Australia brought a new professionalism which in the 1970s changed the face of auctioneering in Australia.
He remembers Spowers as a sometimes prickly Sandhurst officer type who out-Britished the British with his "pronounced pommie accent."
Gray went to the press conference at the Sydney Wentworth Hotel which announced the arrival of Christie's in Australia.
He was dismissed by Christie's as a meddling colonial when he suggested that Spowers call around to discuss the future of Christie's in Australia with him.
The response from Christie's was "What on earth for?" Christie's soon had to eat humble pie when directors discovered Gray had inherited the (unrelated but registered) Christie's name in Australia when Gray took over a pawn broking operation.
Gray had also more recently registered Christie, Manson and Woods Australia after the name of the parent company in London. Christie's paid up for the names.
Standards of cataloguing improved sharply following the arrival of Christie's and the industry begun to exude a more polished air, said Gray.
But the industry remained unregulated and Spowers was still very much the product of a racier era.
From Cape Town the publicist Allan Dexter, who was engaged to promote Christie's Australia in its early years, told AASD: "Spowers was a gentleman.
"But he was also adept at convincing the auction crowd into believing something had sold when it hadn't.
"I often heard my name called out as having bought a lot when, in fact, I hadn't bid at all.
"When I questioned the Major post auction he laughed it off as follows: "Oh I always need a buying in name and your rolls off the tongue and everyone, especially the dealers, think the lot has sold."
At a Christie's antique auction in Sydney Spowers,who clearly had a humorous streak, did the same to "Ingram". After I had bought an embossed silver whisky flask which fitted into my collection of Japanoiserie he came to a series of lots of whisky flasks for which there were no buyers.
He winked and knocked them all down to "Ingram" .
Using fictitious names to help maintain a lot's value in post-sale negotiations was a common practice which also helped maintain confidence as an auction proceeded.
Real names where used when possible and a list of lots with names of buyers for some years published by the major auction houses after each sale.
Christie's launched art, book and antique auctions in Sydney in October and Melbourne in March.
The antique sales fell by the wayside because of lack of locally owned private as against dealer stock. Other auction houses imported antiques to obtain bulk but Christie's was philosophically against selling stock of its own.
The London satirical magazine Private Eye, however, had a go at Spowers for effectively selling his own goods without disclosure. He knocked down in London a selection of very books for sale on behalf of "A charitable trust."
Buyers had not been made aware that it was the Spowers Charitable Trust which he had established to maintain the property in which he lived Old House Farm, Windlesham Surrey.
This was, however, a very legitimate and dedicated charity operting one of the world's finest Arboretums.
The library of its management amounts to more than 50 or 60 folio leather-bound typed volumes detailing the planting, construction and development of the arboretum
Its purpose was given to preserve an area of natural woodland habitat for wildfowl and promote a collection of books on the subject of trees, their history and culture to increase public knowledge.
He was so dedicated to the project, it seems, that an occasional supermarket shopping trolley ended up in the lake helping to oxidise it.
He would make Australians welcome when they visited London and his hospitality at Windlesham extended to driving visitors around in a pale blue Rolls Royce.
Related to the Australian artist Ethel Spowers, he came from an old Melbourne family which gave Christie's an entree to some of the finest collections in the country. His father, William Alan had a big shareholding in the Argus newspaper group.
Christie's shipped a lot of Australian works back from Europe for sale in Australia and while cleaning out Australian attics of overseas works at least saw to it that a world price was achieved.
Fellow London directors took many of the first sales which were held at the Bonython Art Gallery in Sydney and the Age Gallery in Melbourne.
But Spowers often tool the rostrum especially for the book sales which he put together including the very special library of Clifford Craig in Launceston in 1974.
Spowers served in the Australian Army 1942-43 transferring to the British Army in 1943. He joined a parachute regiment in Italy. He became ADC to Lord Casey, Governor of Bengal in 1945 and was commissioned a major in the Grenadier Guards in 1960.
He joined Christie's books and manuscripts department in 1960 where his attention to precision found an appropriate outlet.
He became a director of Christie's always maintaining an eye for the Antipodies which had been the inspiration for many of the natural history books which he cherished.
His godfather was Lord Casey and a continuing connection with the man who was to become Australia's Governor General through service in the army in Bengal in WWII resulted in the appointment of Ms Sue Hewitt, then assistant to Lady Maie Casey, as office manager of Christie's in London..
Ms Joan McClelland, who still runs the Joshua McClelland Print Room in Melbourne's Collins Street, was Melbourne representative.
Ms Hewitt said that he was a great adventurer, always wanting to be part of the action, and unflappable, as when students demonstrated for Aboriginal rights at a sale held at Melbourne's historic Como in 1970 due to the oofering of by Namatjira.
He simply accepted and acknowledge a petition from the students who had climbed over the secured iron fences and burst into the heavily policed marquee and the students left.
He went to war in 1943 to find his father Colonel Alan Spowers, a co-owner of the Argus newspaper group.
Spowers was 84 when died in an ambulance to hospital after a fall attending to the maintenance of the Arboretum.
He is survived by his two wives, Antonia and Jane; his sons Adam, Rory and Hugo and a sister Rosita.
Roger McIlroy said that the man who many called The Galloping Major because he was always "on the go" was as enthusiastic about the relaunch of Christie's in Australia in 1988 as about the company's launch in 1968-69.
He could not have been too happy about the cessation of the company's auctions in Australia three years ago in favour of developing new markets such as China and the Middle East.
He was the product of an age that vanished with the triumph of the bean counters, said Patricia McDonald who was a manager of Christie's Melbourne operation for several years.
