Fingerprints: The Origins Of Crime And The Murder Case That Launched Forensic.. [Hardcover]

After an account of the crime, the investigation and the suspects arrest, the author moves back in time to give an overview of the early criminal justice system. Identification of criminals was a problem, particularly attempting to identify repeat offenders. The author includes an account of the work done by the early pioneers in identification, including the struggle among them over who should get credit for the discovery of fingerprints. Some readers found this part of the book less interesting, but I was fascinated. The people who historically have been given credit for the origination of fingerprint identification, don't necessarily deserve it.

He then returns to the crime and gives an account of the trial. Fingerprints are now the most widely accepted proof of identity, but at that time the courts had not had this sort of evidence presented to them, so it was not an open and shut case by any means.

Colleagues of mine who are fingerprint examiners both enjoyed the book very much. They commented that, "It really shows that he's done his homework", and that "everyone should enjoy it".

I'd have to agree, this is quite simply the best book that I've read on the history of fingerprint identification.

Daryl W. Clemens, Editor, crimeandclues.com.

Faulds actually had little role in the origin of fingerprinting, because he failed to put evidence together and publish it. Between 1880 and 1900 he published just two items about the subject, both of them informal letters and not even papers. The first (Nature, 1880) contained speculation based on just one year of experience in the area. The second (Nature, 1894) was an embarrasing tirade against William Herschel (who was the first to use fingerprints in practice), in which Faulds challenged Herschel to produce documents to substantiate the use of fingerprints in India some 20 years prior to Faulds' speculations. Herschel duly produced a critical document, which was published in Nature. Faulds then simply clammed up until 1905. The controversy between himself and Herschel would reappear in Nature in 1917, with similar results.

Faulds was a tireless self-promoter who was determined to be granted the scientific fame that had eluded him. After the use of fingerprints was well-established, using a classification scheme devised by Galton and adapted by Henry, and accepted by the courts, he did his utmost to write himself back into the picture. The truth is that, though some of the speculations in his 1880 letter later proved accurate, he gave no reasons for anyone to believe them, and never marshalled the evidence that was required. One year is not enough to establish the permanence of fingerprints over a lifetime, and an awful lot of data is required to establish uniqueness of fingerprints. Consequently, his letter was simply forgotten when it appeared, and he failed to produce anything more substantial until 1905, by which time his contributions were irrelevant. Fingerprints were only accepted when it was established through hard data that they were a. unique, b. unchanging and c. practically checkable by police. This work was done by Galton, not Faulds. With regard to first practical use of fingerprints, Herschel preceded Faulds by 20 years. Though Beavan continually insists that Galton et al "stole" Faulds research, there was really nothing to steal, and Galton simply forgot that Faulds existed until Bertillon's faulty anthropometrical system for identifying criminals brought him into the field 8 years later, in 1888.

Unfortunately Faulds has now been taken up the Scottish nationalists, in much the same way that the Soviets used to attribute every major invention to a Russian. It may gladden their hearts to discover that Galton was by direct descent a Barclay (in many lines) and a Cameron. If they are more interested in science than patriotic sentiment, they would do well to check the original sources themselves and not rely on Beavan's racy feature writing and creative quotation.