Barbara Furnell Smith was a senior lecturer in pathology at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. She was born in London on 27 September 1922, the daughter of Ernest Smith and Alice Smith née Furnell, who had married in Bombay, India. She studied medicine at the University of Bristol, qualified in 1944 and gained her FRCS in 1949. She was awarded a fellowship in clinical research by the Medical Research Council. She gained a PhD in 1965 and an MD in 1968 and became a senior lecturer at Barts. She was a member of the Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. She published papers and a book *The neuropathology of the alimentary trace* (London, Arnold, 1972). Smith died in 2004.