How the Subject Grew Abroad

Sir Francis Galton, on the basis of the ideas of Herschel and Faulds, scientifically established the basic principles of uniqueness and permanence.

Sir Edward Richard Henry, Inspector General of Police, Bengal, with the able assistance of two Indian officers, Khan Bahadur Azizul Haque and Rai Bahadur Hem Chandra Bose, developed a system of classification, whereby the anthropometric system was abandoned. Classification is the missing piece: a collection of prints is useless unless a searcher can find the right one, and Henry's system, with the arithmetic worked out by Haque and Bose, made a large collection searchable.

And the first bureau in the world was Indian. The world's first Finger Print Bureau was established in 1897 at the Writers' Building in Calcutta.

The exchange principle and the first laboratory

Edmond Locard established the first police laboratory at Lyon in 1910 and is associated with the exchange principle, that every contact leaves a trace. The principle is discussed in [The Principles Forensic Science Rests On]; what belongs here is the institutional point. Locard's contribution was not only an idea but the demonstration that a police force could employ scientists in a laboratory of its own, and every laboratory in this book descends from that model.

The dates a candidate should be able to give

Toxicology first. Mathieu Orfila, a Spaniard working in Paris, published his treatise on poisons in 1814 and is called the father of forensic toxicology, because he studied poisons systematically, established how they could be detected in tissue, and insisted that a chemical test be validated before it was used against a person. He gave evidence in the Marie Lafarge trial of 1840, in which arsenic was demonstrated in exhumed tissue, and that trial made publicly the point that a laboratory could prove a murder.

Identification second. Bertillon introduced anthropometry in 1879. Purkinje classified ridge patterns in 1823, Herschel began taking finger impressions on contracts at Jungipoor in Bengal in 1858, Faulds published his proposal for their use in criminal identification in 1880, and Galton established persistence and individuality statistically in 1892.

Systematisation third. Hans Gross, an Austrian examining magistrate, published his handbook for investigating magistrates in 1893, the first work setting out how an investigation should use scientific assistance, and he is called the father of criminalistics. Edmond Locard established the first police laboratory at Lyon in 1910.

Serology fourth. Karl Landsteiner described the ABO blood groups in 1901, and Paul Uhlenhuth developed the precipitin test for species of origin in the same year, so that for the first time a stain could be shown to be human blood rather than animal.

Ballistics and then DNA. Calvin Goddard developed firearm identification in the United States in the 1920s using the comparison microscope. Alec Jeffreys, at Leicester, discovered in 1984 that certain repetitive regions of DNA varied so much between individuals that the pattern derived from them was effectively unique. Its first criminal use exonerated a young man who had confessed and convicted Colin Pitchfork, the first person in the world convicted on DNA evidence. That the technique's first act was an exoneration is the historically important point.

The specialist disciplines

Serology. The discovery of the human blood groups at the beginning of the twentieth century made it possible to say that a stain could not have come from a particular person, and the development of the precipitin test made it possible to say whether a stain was human at all. Both are exclusion techniques, and exclusion is where serology was strongest until profiling arrived.

Questioned documents. The examination of handwriting and of documents was placed on a systematic footing in the early twentieth century, and the vocabulary of class and individual characteristics that a document examiner still uses comes from that period.

Firearm identification. The comparison microscope, which lets an examiner view two objects side by side in a single field, made the comparison of striations on bullets practicable, and firearm identification became a recognised discipline between the wars.

Toxicology. Chemistry acquired reliable tests for the metallic poisons in the nineteenth century, and the detection of arsenic in particular changed the practical possibility of proving a poisoning.

What the global history is for

An examiner asking for the development "globally and in India" is testing two things.

Whether you can tell an idea from an institution. Herschel had an idea; the Writers' Building bureau was an institution.

Whether you know where India sits in the story. The answer is that India is not a follower in this history. The classification system that made fingerprints usable was worked out in Bengal, two of the three men who worked it out were Indian, and the first bureau in the world was in Calcutta. A candidate who writes the global history as though it happened in Europe and then arrived in India has got the story backwards, and this is the single most valuable point in this chapter.

A worked example: how one problem was solved four times

A man is arrested in 1880, in 1900, in 1930 and in 2026 for a burglary, and in each case the question is whether he has been convicted before.

1880. He gives a false name. There is a written description in a register, and a description matches many men. He is treated as a first offender.

1900. Anthropometric measurements are taken and searched against the record, or, in Bengal, his fingerprints are taken and classified under the Henry system and searched in the bureau at the Writers' Building. He is identified.

1930. Fingerprints only; anthropometry has been abandoned because it cannot be used on a crime scene mark and because it is unreliable between operators.

2026. His measurements are taken under the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022, and searched against the national database. The list now includes iris and retina scans and photographs as well as prints, which is anthropometry returning in a form that works.

What the example shows. The problem never changed. What changed is the reliability of the answer and the speed of the search, and the second is as important as the first.

Distinctions

What beginners get wrong

Writing the history as a list of names with dates and nothing else. Say what each contributed and why it mattered.

Giving Henry sole credit. The Bureau's own account names Azizul Haque and Hem Chandra Bose as the officers who assisted in developing the classification.

Saying fingerprints replaced anthropometry because they were more accurate. That is part of it. The decisive reason is that a criminal leaves fingerprints at a scene and leaves no measurements.

Treating the global history as separate from the Indian one. The first bureau in the world was in Calcutta.

Quick revision

• Alphonse Bertillon: anthropometry, body measurements with a standard photograph, used to classify a criminal record. Failed because it was operator dependent and useless on a crime scene mark.
• Sir William Herschel, 1858, Hooghly district of Bengal: fingerprints as a means of personal identification.
• Dr. Henry Faulds: detection of a criminal from latent prints at a scene, and that no two prints are alike.
• Sir Francis Galton: scientifically established uniqueness and permanence.
• Sir Edward Richard Henry, Inspector General of Police, Bengal, with Khan Bahadur Azizul Haque and Rai Bahadur Hem Chandra Bose: the classification system, on which anthropometry was abandoned.
• The world's first Finger Print Bureau: 1897, Writers' Building, Calcutta.
• Edmond Locard: the exchange principle and the first police laboratory, Lyon, 1910.
• The specialist disciplines: serology, questioned documents, firearm identification and toxicology.

Test yourself

1. Why was anthropometry abandoned? Because the measurements were laborious and varied between operators, could not be used on a growing person, and above all could not be used on a crime scene, since an offender leaves no measurements behind. Fingerprint classification, once it made a large collection searchable, removed the reason to keep it.

2. What did each of Herschel, Faulds, Galton and Henry contribute? Herschel put forward in 1858 the idea of using fingerprints for personal identification. Faulds added the idea of detecting a criminal from latent prints at a scene and the conclusion that no two prints are alike. Galton established scientifically the principles of uniqueness and permanence. Henry, assisted by Azizul Haque and Hem Chandra Bose, developed the classification system that made a collection searchable.

3. Where and when was the world's first Finger Print Bureau established? In 1897, at the Writers' Building in Calcutta, now Kolkata.

4. What was Locard's institutional contribution as distinct from his principle? He established the first police laboratory, at Lyon in 1910, and so demonstrated that a police force could employ scientists in a laboratory of its own. Every forensic science laboratory descends from that model.