Abstract
This chapter uses notebooks and media reportage of the extensive medico-legal practice of Leeds-based doctor, toxicologist, and lecturer Thomas Scattergood (1826–1900) to examine the development of forensic techniques and the construction and circulation of forensic knowledge in the second half of the nineteenth century. We address three areas of historiographical and historical interest. Firstly, the medico-scientific content of the notebooks shows that the detailed work that underpinned even relatively uncomplicated forensic cases lies largely hidden. Secondly, the cross-referencing and multiple tests that Scattergood conducted are considered as a means of constructing forensic knowledge. Scattergood’s role as an expert witness, in the period when this type of witness was gaining public recognition, adds to our understanding of the historical development and professionalization of forensic investigation.
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Notes
- 1.
T. Scattergood, Medical Case Histories: Volume 1, 1856–1876, MS 534/1, p. 1.
- 2.
‘Thomas Scattergood, MRCS, LSA’, British Medical Journal, 3 March 1900, p. 547.
- 3.
The Yorkshire Evening Post, 23 February 1900, p. 4; The Yorkshire Post, 24 February 1900, p. 8; ‘Thomas Scattergood, MRCS Eng., LSA’, The Lancet, 10 March 1900, pp. 737–738.
- 4.
T. Scattergood, ‘Morbilli and rubeola’, British Medical Journal, 29 January 1870, 1: 121; ‘A case of poisoning by nitrate of silver’, British Medical Journal, 20 May 1871, 1: 527.
- 5.
T. Scattergood, ‘On minerals’, 1867, Wellcome Library, London, MS4407 (Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society).
- 6.
T. Scattergood, ‘Warmth and life’, 1868, Wellcome Library, London, MS4409 (Working Man’s Club, Leeds).
- 7.
T. Scattergood, ‘Note on the proper treatment of Monsters’, 1876, Wellcome Library, London, MS4411 (Leeds and West Riding Medico-Chirurgical Society).
- 8.
T. Scattergood, ‘Instruments and apparatus used in the detection of disease’, 1876, Wellcome Library, London, MS4413 (Priestley Club).
- 9.
‘Thomas Scattergood, MRCS, LSA’, British Medical Journal, 3 March 1900, 1: 547.
- 10.
Cutting pasted into MS 534/2, p. 60.
- 11.
Important studies of the past 30 years include the doctoral theses of Crawford, Duvall, Merry, and Ward.
- 12.
MS 534/1, Index, placed after p. 268.
- 13.
I.A. Burney, Poison, Detection and the Victorian Imagination, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006, pp. 135–144; T. Ward, ‘A mania for suspicion: Poisoning, science, and the law’, in J. Rowbotham and K. Stevenson (eds.), Criminal Conversations: Victorian Crimes, Social Panic, and Moral Outrage, Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2005, 140–156; M. Essig, ‘Poison murder and expert testimony: Doubting the physician in late nineteenth-century America’, Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, 14 (2002): 177–210.
- 14.
N.G. Coley, ‘Alfred Swaine Taylor, MD, FRS (1806–1880): Forensic toxicologist’, Medical History, 1991, 35: 409–427, pp. 425–426.
- 15.
A.S. Taylor, The Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence, London: John Churchill & Sons, 1865. See, for example, MS 534/4, pp. 11r, 13v.
- 16.
W.A. Guy, Principles of Forensic Medicine, 2nd ed., London: Henry Renshaw, 1861; MS 534/1, p. 81.
- 17.
J. Ward, Origins and Development of Forensic Medicine and Forensic Science in England, 1823–1946, Unpublished PhD thesis, The Open University, 1993, p. 22; C. Crawford, ‘A scientific profession: Medical reform and forensic medicine in British periodicals of the early nineteenth century’, in R. French and A. Wear (eds.), British Medicine in an Age of Reform, London and New York: Routledge, 1991, pp. 203–230.
- 18.
R.J. Defalque and A.J. Wright, ‘The short, tragic life of Robert M. Glover’, Anaesthesia, 2004, 59: 394–400.
- 19.
‘Thomas Scattergood, MRCS, LSA’, British Medical Journal, 3 March 1900, 1: 547.
- 20.
For the key Victorian developments in forensic psychiatry, see J.P. Eigen, Mad-Doctors in the Dock: Defending the Diagnosis, 1760–1913, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.
- 21.
MSS 534/1-4—List compiled from across the four manuscripts.
- 22.
MS 534/2, pp. 43–45. For Oliver Scattergood, see The Medical Register for 1887, London: General Medical Council, 1887, p. 916.
- 23.
MS 534/1, pp. 1–3.
- 24.
MS 534/1, pp. 16–25.
- 25.
Hull Packet, 13 May 1859, p. 8; Huddersfield Chronicle, 23 July 1859, p. 6.
- 26.
See, for example, numerous advertisements in the Knaresborough Post, accessed via The British Newspaper Archive, https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk; Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Hirst,_Brooke_and_Hirst, Accessed 9 June 2019.
- 27.
K.D. Watson, ‘Medical and chemical expertise in English trials for criminal poisoning, 1750–1914’, Medical History, 2006, 50: 373–390, p. 387.
- 28.
Ibid., p. 386.
- 29.
E. Alvarez, X. Franch, and J. Martí-Henneberg, ‘Evolution of the territorial coverage of the railway network and its influence on population growth: The case of England and Wales, 1871–1931’, Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, 2013, 46(3): 175–191, pp. 177–178.
- 30.
K.D. Watson, Poisoned Lives, English Poisoners and their Victims, London: Hambledon and London, 2004; Coley, ‘Alfred Swaine Taylor’, p. 410.
- 31.
Watson, Poisoned Lives, pp. 16–30.
- 32.
MS 534/1, pp. 79–84.
- 33.
All quotations taken from MS 534/2, pp. 4–10.
- 34.
Ibid., p. 5.
- 35.
Ibid., p. 9. We have not yet deciphered what S.V.R. & A stands for, although A is possibly acetic acid.
- 36.
Ibid. The objective refers to the microscope he used to observe the crystals.
- 37.
Ibid., p. 10.
- 38.
MS 534/1, p. 148; a full account of the inquest appeared in The Leeds Mercury, 29 September 1869, p. 4.
- 39.
MS 534/2, pp. 57–60.
- 40.
See also Huddersfield Chronicle, 16 June 1877, p. 6; The Leeds Times, 4 August 1877, p. 3. Stephenson was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to two weeks in prison and five years in a reformatory school.
- 41.
MS 534/2, p. 128.
- 42.
MS 534/2, pp. 43–45.
- 43.
MS 534/4, p. 4.
- 44.
Ibid.
- 45.
I.A. Burney, Bodies of Evidence: Medicine and the Politics of the English Inquest, 1830–1926, Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, pp. 107–136; C.A.G. Jones, Expert Witnesses: Science, Medicine, and the Practice of Law, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994, pp. 76–86.
- 46.
Watson, Poisoned Lives, pp. 212–217.
- 47.
Quoted in ibid., p. 216.
- 48.
MS 534/1, p. 188.
- 49.
Watson, Poisoned Lives, p. 217.
- 50.
R. Cowley, A History of the British Police: From its Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day, Stroud: The History Press, 2011.
Archive
The British Newspaper Archive, https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk.
Brotherton Library, Special Collections, University of Leeds:
Scattergood, T., Medical Case Histories: Volume 1, 1856–1876, MS 534/1.
Scattergood, T., Medical Case Histories: Volume 2, 1875–1897, MS 534/2.
Scattergood, T., Medical Case Histories: Volume 3, 1846–1885, MS 534/3.
Scattergood, T., Notes for Lectures on Forensic Medicine, c.1860s–c.1890s, MS 534/4.
Archives and Manuscripts, Wellcome Library, London:
Scattergood, T. ‘On Minerals’, 1867, MS4407.
Scattergood, T., ‘Warmth and Life’, 1868, MS4409.
Scattergood, T., ‘Note on the Proper Treatment of Monsters’, 1876, MS4411.
Scattergood, T., ‘Instruments and Apparatus used in the Detection of Disease’, 1876, MS4413.
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Anon., The Leeds Times, 4 August 1877b, 3.
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Merry, K.J., Murder by Poison in Scotland during the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2010.
Scattergood, T., ‘A case of poisoning by nitrate of silver’, British Medical Journal, 20 May 1871, 1: 527.
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Taylor, A.S., The Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence, London: John Churchill & Sons, 1865.
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Watson, K.D., Poisoned Lives, English Poisoners and their Victims, London: Hambledon and London, 2004.
Watson, K.D., ‘Medical and chemical expertise in English trials for criminal poisoning, 1750–1914’, Medical History, 2006, 50: 373–390.
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Sellers, L.M., Watson, K.D. (2020). The Construction of Forensic Knowledge in Victorian Yorkshire: Dr Thomas Scattergood and His Casebooks, 1856–1897. In: Adam, A. (eds) Crime and the Construction of Forensic Objectivity from 1850. Palgrave Histories of Policing, Punishment and Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28837-2_8
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