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Sir Sydney Alfred Smith
SIR SYDNEY ALFRED SMITH CBE (4 August 1883 - 8 May 1969), was a renowned forensic scientist and pathologist.
Born in Roxburgh, Otago, New Zealand, he was educated at Roxburgh public school and Vic...view moreSIR SYDNEY ALFRED SMITH CBE (4 August 1883 - 8 May 1969), was a renowned forensic scientist and pathologist.
Born in Roxburgh, Otago, New Zealand, he was educated at Roxburgh public school and Victoria College, Wellington. He later won a Vans Dunlop scholarship at Edinburgh University in botany and zoology. He graduated in 1912, M.B. Ch.B., with first-class honours and a research scholarship
Following a short period in general practice, Smith became an assistant in the Edinburgh department of forensic medicine at the suggestion of Prof. Harvey Littlejohn. He obtained his M.D. in 1914 with a gold medal and the Alison Prize.
He returned to New Zealand in 1914 and took up a post as Medical Officer of Health for Otago at Dunedin. During World War I, he served as a major in the New Zealand Army Corps. In 1917, he took up a post as medico-legal advisor to the Government of Egypt and senior lecturer in forensic medicine at the School of Medicine in Cairo.
Smith went on to establish himself as an authority in the field of ballistics and firearms in forensic medicine, publishing the first edition of Textbook of Forensic Medicine in 1925. In 1928, he was appointed to the Regius Chair of Forensic Medicine at Edinburgh University and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, a post he held 1931-1953. He was Rector of the University of Edinburgh from 1954-1957. He published an autobiography, Mostly Murder, in 1959.
In Queen’s Birthday Honours 1944, Smith was appointed as a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. In the New Year Honours 1949, he was appointed as a Knight Bachelor and invested on 4 March 1949.
He died in 1969 in Edinburgh.
ERLE STANLEY GARDNER (July 17, 1889 - March 11, 1970) was an American lawyer and best-selling American author of the 20th century at the time of his death. He is best known for the Perry Mason series of detective stories, and also wrote numerous other novels.view less