Keith Simpson

Who was Keith Simpson?

Cedric Keith Simpson, CBE, FRCP, MD, MA, LLD, FRCPath, was an English forensic pathologist. He was Professor of Forensic Medicine in the University of London at Guy's Hospital, Lecturer in Forensic Medicine at the University of Oxford and a founder member and President of the Association of Forensic Medicine. Professor Simpson became renowned for his post-mortems on high profile murder cases, including the 1949 Acid Bath Murders committed by John George Haigh and the murder of gangster George Cornell, who was shot dead by Ronnie Kray in 1966.

He pioneered forensic dentistry, and was prominent in alerting physicians and others to the reality of the battered baby syndrome. Professor Simpson, wrote a standard textbook on his subject and edited Taylor's Medical Jurisprudence, a basic work of reference of the British medical profession. Forty Years of Murder was Simpson's autobiography and became an international best-seller in the late 1970s. He was London’s first forensic pathologist to be recognised by the Home Office, and in 1975 his long public service was recognised with the award of a CBE. Professor Keith Simpson had by then gained the reputation of having performed more autopsies than any other pathologist in the world.