William Smellie (5 February 1697 – 5 March 1763) was a Scottish obstetrician and medical instructor who practiced and taught primarily in London.

It was not a particularly lucrative venture, as he also sold cloth as a side business to supplement his income, but he began reading medical books and teaching himself obstetrics at this time.

Through the introduction of forceps in the field of obstetrics, more delicate maneuvers could be performed and therefore obstetricians were able to equally weigh the life of the mother and child when complications did arise and were more often able to resolve the problem and save both.

[3] His students did not gain any certification or fulfill medical training requirements by attending his courses, but came seeking to enhance their knowledge.

Through his humble background, Smellie was able to gain great acclaim through his interest in obstetrics and as an innovator of medical instruments and reference literature.

In retirement, Smellie had a residence built which he called Smellom Hall,[3] and focused on compiling and refining his findings into books, including the last volume of A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery.

In the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine he suggested that Smellie and his collaborator and later competitor William Hunter were responsible for multiple murders of pregnant women in order to gain access to corpses for anatomical dissection and physiological experimentation.

[13] Due to the inadequate match between supply and demand of corpses, scientists had to find other means, often requiring illegal methods, to obtain access.

[14][7] He indicated that grave robbing was not a sufficient method by which obstetricians could access the specific type of tissue required for testing and dissection.

Many of the accusations came from competitors, and fearing trial and even execution, Smellie stopped his work for several years in an effort to quash the suspicion that had been raised.

[14][7] Shelton's supposition was criticized by a number of medical historians who pointed out that already in 1761 Peter Camper indicated that the figures in Smellie's A Sett of Anatomical Tables "were not all from real life",[15] and very likely other methods than murder were available to obtain bodies of recently died pregnant women at that time.