Bentley Purchase

Sir William Bentley Purchase (born December 31, 1890 , † September 27, 1961 in Ipswich) was an English forensic doctor .

family

Purchase was the only son of Sir William Henry Purchase, a Luton merchant and importer of straw goods. His mother was the daughter of Randall G. Vogan, who owned a flour factory. In 1924 he married Beryl Chapman and had a son and a daughter with her. He died as a result of falling off the roof while trying to repair his television antenna.

Professional background

Purchase attended Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (BA 1911) and then studied medicine at London Hospital Medical College (graduation in 1914). While studying medicine, he also took up law studies. During the First World War he served as a medical officer with the Royal Artillery in France. After the war he continued his law studies and in 1919 was barrister in the Inner Temple . The following year he obtained a diploma in public health (DPH) and in 1921 a bachelor's degree in medicine. Shortly thereafter, Purchase was named Deputy Coroner in East London. At the same time he worked as a lawyer from 1924 to 1930 .

In 1930 he was appointed coroner as the successor to Sir Walter Schröder - as one of six in London. His administrative district included north London with Finsbury , Hampstead , Holborn , Islington , St Pancras and the City of Westminster . Bethnal Green , Paddington and Shoreditch were added in 1956 ; the number of coroners in London had meanwhile dropped to three. In 1958, Purchase retired as a London coroner and took over the coroner's office for Ipswich , his place of residence.

By the end of his career, Purchase had held about 20,000 inquests (formal death investigations); In his last year in London alone, 3,672 cases of sudden death or death requiring clarification were reported to his office.

Teaching

Lecturer in forensic medicine at University College Hospital , St. Thomas's Hospital and Royal Free Hospital.

Famous cases

Styllou Christofi, Sir Michael O'Dwyer, Alex de Antiquis, John Christie , Timothy Evans

Operation Mincemeat

Purchase was consulted by the British secret service during World War II because they needed a male corpse for a strategic deception operation. Purchase volunteered to help after it was indicated that the plan was endorsed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill . Purchase found a matching body among the deaths in his county, and the operation was successfully carried out under the code name Operation Mincemeat .

Inquests in Pentonville

London's Pentonville Prison was Purchase's jurisdiction; thus he also had to hold the inquiry for those executed there. Right at the beginning of his activity as coroner, he arranged for a full autopsy to be carried out after each execution.

Publications

Purchase edited the eighth and (together with Henry Woods Wollaston) the ninth edition of the legal standard work on the coroner's office ("Jervis's Office and Duties of Coroners"), also "Law of Affiliation and Bastardy" by Guy Lushington, wrote the student Textbook “Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology” and together with Francis Edward Camps “Practical Forensic Medicine”.

Honors

1917 Military Cross, 1921 Serbian Order of the White Eagle, 1949 Commander of the Order of the British Empire , promoted to Knight Bachelor in 1958 .

literature

• Robert Jackson, coroner. The Biography of Sir Bentley Purchase, London 1968
• Obituary in the British Medical Journal, October 7, 1961, p. 965; signed FEC, PMC 1969941 (free full text)