Person    | Male  Born 16/5/1877  Died 17/12/1947

Sir Bernard Spilsbury

Categories: Law, Medicine

Forensic pathologist. Born Leamington Spa, son of a manufacturing chemist. He was a pioneer in the science of determining the cause of death by examining a corpse and gave evidence in many cases which attracted publicity and made him quite famous. His cases include: Crippen and the 'brides in the bath'. He was also key to 'Operation Mincemeat'.

However he was clearly not a 'team-player', refusing to share his methods, train others or submit to peer review. He rather steam-rollered his views through the courts and concerns about possible miscarriages of justice have been raised recently.

Of his three sons one died in the Blitz while working as a doctor at St Thomas's Hospital and one died of tuberculosis in 1945. Failing health and these two deaths are thought have contributed to Spilsbury's suicide by gas in his laboratory at University College.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Sir Bernard Spilsbury

Commemorated ati

Sir Bernard Spilsbury

Sir Bernard Spilsbury, 1877 - 1947, forensic pathologist, lived here, 1912 - ...

Read More

Other Subjects

Learie Constantine

Learie Constantine

Cricketer and politician. Born Learie Nicholas Constantine at Petit Valley, Diego Martin, near Maraval, Trinidad. As a cricketer, he toured England with the West Indies team in the 1920s and was ev...

Person, Law, Politics & Administration, Sport / Games, Caribbean Islands

2 memorials
Police Station, Upper Street, Islington

Police Station, Upper Street, Islington

Police Station at 277 Upper Street, Islington, N1.The picture source website also has a photograph of this very lamp being fixed to the Upper Street building in 1938.

Place, Armed Forces, Law

1 memorial
125 deaths on Tower Hill

125 deaths on Tower Hill

Wikipedia lists only 36 (in 2011).  Most of the victims that we have researched are recorded as having been beheaded but A London Inheritance, quoting John Stow (c. 1598), refers to "a large scaffo...

Group, Execution, Law

1 memorial
Philip Noble Fawcett, LL.M.

Philip Noble Fawcett, LL.M.

Philip Noble Fawcett was born on 7 April 1863 in Dublin, Ireland, the younger child of Henry Fawcett (1835-1882) and Mary Maria Fawcett née Noble (1834-1906). On 1 May 1863 he was baptised in St. P...

Person, Armed Forces, Law, Politics & Administration, Ireland

1 memorial
Lieutenant Ralph Charles Fairbairn Cotton

Lieutenant Ralph Charles Fairbairn Cotton

Ralph Charles Fairbairn Cotton was born on 16 January 1883 in Sydenham, Kent (now Greater London), one of the three children of Stephen Fairbairn Cotton (c.1857-1929) and Carrie Henrietta Maria Cot...

Person, Armed Forces, Law, France

War dead, WW1
1 memorial

Previously viewed

A. W. Hopcraft

A. W. Hopcraft

Killed in WW1.

Person

War dead, WW1
1 memorial
H. G. J. Burton

H. G. J. Burton

Co-partner or employee of the South Suburban Gas Company. Served but did not die in WW1.

Person, Armed Forces

War served, WW1
1 memorial