| Description Of Item | This collection is made up of an assortment of glass negatives, weapons and biological material previously owned by the forensic pathologist Sir Sydney Smith.
Sydney Smith studied a diverse range of subjects in his home country of New Zealand before embarking on a medical degree at the University of Edinburgh in 1908. Under the guidance of Sir Harvey Littlejohn, the Dean of Medicine, Smith took up a position in forensic medicine during which he assisted Littlejohn in a number of high profile murder cases whilst also being responsible for gaining samples of adipocere from bodies that had been submerged in water. Although Smith left Edinburgh in 1914, firstly to take up a position as a medical officer of health in New Zealand followed by the position of medico-legal expert in Egypt, complete with a lectureship at the University of Egypt in Cairo in 1917, Smith returned in 1928 as Chair of Forensic Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. In 1931 Smith became the Dean of Medicine, a position which he held until his retirement, and it is from this period following his return to Edinburgh that this collection of material appears to be most associated with.
The collection has been divided into three sections. The first is a series of weapons, identified as being material taken as evidence from crime scenes, particularly murder and suicide investigations. A number of these weapons have attached evidence labels which identify the cases they belong to (although none appear to match the casefiles associated with Sydney Smith in our collections, see reference DEP/SMS) These mostly date to Smith’s extended stay in Edinburgh, although there are a few examples which were possibly related to cases in which Littlejohn was the forensic expert based upon the earlier dates. The second part of the collection is made up of a series of glass negatives related to several aspects of forensic science and medicine. Many of these are boxed into categories and are clearly labelled as belonging to Sydney Smith. A number of these boxed slides also relate to various murder or crime investigations Smith was involved in. It appears, from the organisation and nature of the slides, that they were possibly used as a teaching resource during his time at the University of Edinburgh. The final part of the collection contains a range of miscellaneous biological material including small lung samples, spermatozoa and blood samples and a box containing some wrist and hand bones. |