See also Sidney Smith for a list of individuals by that name.

Sir Sydney Alfred Smith CBE

CBE

CBE and C.B.E. are abbreviations for "Commander of the Order of the British Empire", a grade in the Order of the British Empire.Other uses include:* Chemical and Biochemical Engineering...

 (4 August 1883 in Roxburgh, New Zealand

Roxburgh, New Zealand

Roxburgh is a small New Zealand town of about 600 people in Central Otago. It is in Teviot Valley on the banks of the Clutha River, 40 km south of Alexandra in the South Island. State Highway 8, which links Central Otago with Dunedin city, passes through the town...

 – 8 May 1969 in Edinburgh, Scotland

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

), was a renowned forensic scientist and pathologist

Pathology

Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....

. From 1928 to 1953, Smith was Regius Professor

Regius Professor

Regius Professorships are "royal" professorships at the ancient universities of the United Kingdom and Ireland - namely Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Dublin. Each of the chairs was created by a monarch, and each appointment, save those at Dublin, is approved by the...

 of Forensic Medicine at the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

, a well-known forensic department of that time. Smith's popular 1959 autobiography, Mostly Murder, has run through many British and American editions, the latest in 1988.

Early life

Smith was born at Roxburgh

Roxburgh, New Zealand

Roxburgh is a small New Zealand town of about 600 people in Central Otago. It is in Teviot Valley on the banks of the Clutha River, 40 km south of Alexandra in the South Island. State Highway 8, which links Central Otago with Dunedin city, passes through the town...

, Otago

Otago

Otago is a region of New Zealand in the south of the South Island. The region covers an area of approximately making it the country's second largest region. The population of Otago is...

, in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 and was educated at Roxburgh public school, and Victoria College, Wellington

Wellington

Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...

. 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.

Career

Following a short period in general practice, Smith became an assistant in the Edinburgh department of forensic medicine at the suggestion of Professor Harvey Littlejohn. He obtained his M.D.

Doctor of Medicine

Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...

 in 1914 with a gold medal and the Alison prize.

Smith returned to New Zealand in 1914 and took up a post as Medical Officer of Health for Otago at Dunedin

Dunedin

Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...

. During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Smith served as a Major in the New Zealand Army Corps. In 1917, Smith took up a post as medico-legal advisor to the Government of Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 and senior lecturer in forensic medicine at the School of Medicine in Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

. Smith went on to establish himself as an authority in the field of ballistics

Ballistics

Ballistics is the science of mechanics that deals with the flight, behavior, and effects of projectiles, especially bullets, gravity bombs, rockets, or the like; the science or art of designing and accelerating projectiles so as to achieve a desired performance.A ballistic body is a body which is...

 and firearms in forensic medicine, publishing the first edition of Textbook of Forensic Medicine in 1925.

In 1928, Smith was appointed to the Regius chair of forensic medicine at Edinburgh University and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, a post he held 1931 to 1953 (succeeded by Professor Thomas J Mackie

Thomas J Mackie

Professor Thomas Jones Mackie CBE was a noted Scottish bacteriologist; Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Edinburgh; and author of medical research textbooks....

.) Smith was Rector of the University of Edinburgh from 1954 to 1957. He published an autobiography, Mostly Murder, in 1959. He died in 1969 in Edinburgh.

Smith was awarded a CBE in 1944, followed by a Knighthood in 1949.

Cases

Smith's first important forensic case was the 1913 trial of Patrick Higgins for the murder of his two sons in Winchburg, Scotland. Due to the effect on the bodies of immersion in a cold flooded quarry, Littlejohn and Smith were able to provide important evidence in the trial, leading to the conviction and execution of Higgins. The two scientists' famous work gained notoriety 94 years later, when a relative of the boys asked for the return of specimens taken from their remains from Edinburgh University, for a proper burial. Research revealed that after their work on the case, Littlejohn and Smith had removed parts of the bodies from police custody to use as scientific specimens, as described in Smith's autobiography,
according to Chris Paton in The Scotsman

The Scotsman

The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....

. In January 2008, the university agreed to return the remains, if the claimant could establish her relationship and the other relatives all agreed.

In 1935, Smith was one of the forensic experts involved in the identification of the bodies of the victims of Buck Ruxton

Buck Ruxton

Dr Buck Ruxton , also known as Buktyar Rustomji Ratanji Hakim, was a Parsi doctor and murderer, involved in one of the United Kingdom's most publicised murder cases of the 1930s, which gripped the nation at the time...

, using a novel technique of forensic anthropology

Forensic anthropology

Forensic anthropology is the application of the science of physical anthropology and human osteology in a legal setting, most often in criminal cases where the victim's remains are in the advanced stages of decomposition. A forensic anthropologist can assist in the identification of deceased...

 to superimpose a photograph over the X-ray

X-ray

X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...

of a victim's skull.