| Admin History | Stuart Stanley Kind was born in the Meadows area of Nottingham in 1925 and died 19 April 2003. He gained a scholarship to the grammar school but turned it down, going to the local secondary and leaving as soon as possible to start work and contribute to the family income. One of his many jobs in this period was laboratory assistant in the pharmacy department at University College Nottingham. He wrote in detail about his upbringing in his autobiography 'The Sceptical Witness' which was published in 1999 and which featured a foreword by novelist PD James.
He joined the RAF during the war and trained as a navigator on bombers. Taking advantage of a wartime scheme to help young people whose education had been interrupted and while waiting for demobilisation, he taught himself enough to pass the special university entrance exam for wartime servicemen, gaining a place at Nottingham University to study botany, graduating in 1951. He refers in his autobiography to spending four and a half happy years at the University. Whilst a student he was a member of the Carnival Committee, as Collections Officer. He started a PhD at the University but left in 1952 due to having to support a young family, taking a job with the Home Office Forensic Science Service.
In 1959 he established the Forensic Science Society. It held regular symposia, bringing together forensic scientists from around the world. Its journal, Science & Justice, became a major influence in international forensic science. In July 1970, he was the first forensic scientist to be elected to a Fellowship of the Institute of Biology. He was Director of the Central Research Establishment at Aldermaston from 1976-1982, and in the 1980s was visiting Professor of Forensic Science at the University of Strathclyde and President of the International Association of Forensic Sciences. In 1985 he was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Science by the University of Nottingham.
Professor Stuart Kind was one of Britain's most outstanding forensic biologists. As the only scientist seconded to the Review Team of the 'Yorkshire Ripper' police investigation, he came up with the concept of 'geographical profiling' and used skills he had learned as a navigator in the RAF during WW2 to predict accurately the area within which Peter Sutcliffe lived.
He published 'Science Against Crime' with Michael Overman, in 1972. His seminal work, 'The Scientific Investigation of Crime' was published after he retired in 1987. |
| Custodial History | The photographs were gifted to the University of Nottingham in 2016 by the family of Professor Kind. |
| Content Description | See subrecords for information about the individual items.
Reprographic copies can be supplied for educational and private study purposes only. The copyright for these images does not lie with the University, so please contact Manuscripts and Special Collections for further advice about all other use of images from this collection. |