John Glaister
Scottish forensic scientist (1856-1932)
Professor John Glaister (9 March 1856 – 18 December 1932) was a Scottish forensic scientist who worked as a general practitioner, police surgeon, and as a lecturer at Glasgow Royal Infirmary Medical School and the University of Glasgow. Glasgow University's Glaister Prize is named in his honour.
Life
Glaister was born in Lanark on 9 March 1856 the son of Joseph Glaister and his wife, Marion Hamilton Weir. He attended the Lanark Grammar School. In 1873, he enrolled to the Faculty of Medicine of Glasgow University. After graduating, he became a police surgeon and a general practitioner in Townhead. In 1881, he was appointed a lecturer in Medical Jurisprudence at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary Medical School, and in 1887 a Special Lecturer in Public Health.
In 1888 he was promoted to Professor of Forensic Medicine and Public Health, which post he held until 1931, being succeeded by his son and namesake.
In 1898 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were John Gray McKendrick, William Jack, Frederick Orpen Bower and James Thomson Bottomley.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “John Glaister” as scottish forensic scientist (1856-1932). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 17, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6235450. VIAF identifies the subject as 31780878. The Library of Congress control number is no2007091835. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1856, 1932, 1873 and 1881.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Glaister” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.