The earliest use of 'throw a spanner in the works' that I can find in print is in P. G. Wodehouse's Right Ho, Jeeves, 1934: She’s the daughter of Mother Machree, 1973. Photocollage of Ringo Starr and other images on top of sheet music cover.

Harry, Bill, ed. (1977). Mersey Beat: The Beginnings of the Beatles. London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-86001-415-0. Two Eggs. Raw eggs, in response to George Maciunas’ eggs filled with ink or paint to be thrown at Yoko’s Add Colour Painting. Robertson, John (2004). "Help! The End of the Beginning". In Trynka, Paul (ed.). The Beatles: Ten Years that Shook the World. London: Dorling Kindersley. pp.160–167. ISBN 0-7566-0670-5. Magnification Piece, 1977. ‘Binoculars by Jean Dupy and John Lennon each independently’ (Maciunas).Starring John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Commander Cody, Ed Sanders, Bobby Seale, Teagarden & Vanwinkle, Allen Ginsberg, Phil Ochs, Archie Sheep & Rosewell Rudd with CJQ, Jerry Rubin, The Up, Rennie Davis, Dave Dellinger, David Peer, Fr. James Groppi, John Sinclair. Holzmann, Hubert (8 December 2010). " "Surrealism to me is reality" ". Titel-Kulturmagazin [ de] (in German). ISSN 2568-7077. Archived from the original on 18 July 2021. Then it was Sean’s turn. He would show his drawings and explain, “This is a bus, and these are the people who want to get on the bus, but they can’t because the bus is too small… so they’re crying.”

Wood, Michael (2004). "John Lennon's schooldays". In Thomson, Elizabeth; Gutman, David (eds.). The Lennon Companion: Twenty-five Years of Comment (Updated and Expandeded.). Cambridge: Da Capo Press. pp.145–149. ISBN 0-585-49984-5.That seems pretty strong circumstantial evidence to place the origin of the phrase in New Zealand in 1828. Lennon chose Carroll for inclusion on the album cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. [6] [7]