Edward Henry
Sir Edward Richard Henry, KCB (26 July 1850–19 February 1931) was the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (head of the Metropolitan Police Force of London) from 1903 to 1918. His commission saw the introduction of police dogs to the force (a development which he regarded with good will), but he is best remembered today for his championship of the method of fingerprinting to identify criminals.
Early life
Henry was born at Shadwell, Wapping, London, to Irish parents. He studied at St Edmund's College, Ware, Hertfordshire, and then at University College, London. After university he joined Lloyds of London as a clerk, and then turned to the study of law. In 1873 he was appointed to the civil service in India, where he became fluent in Urdu and Hindi.
Meanwhile, Henry had apparently taken a wife, because by November 1890 he was getting married a second time, to Louisa Langrishe Moore.
On April 2, 1891, Henry was appointed Inspector General of the Bengal Police. In this capacity, Henry exchanged letters with Francis Galton regarding the use of fingerprinting to identify criminals, either instead of or in addition to the "anthopometric" method of Alphonse Bertillon, which Henry had already instated in the Bengal police department. Between July 1896 and February 1897, with the assistance of Azial Haque and Hemchandra Bose, Henry developed a system of fingerprint classification enabling fingerprint records to be organized and searched with relative ease. The "Henry Classification System" quickly caught on with other police forces, and in July 1897 the Governor-General of India decreed that fingerprinting should be made an official policy of the British Raj.
In 1900, Henry spoke before the Belper Committee in London on the merits of fingerprinting; he was later sent to Natal, South Africa, to set up fingerprinting operations there. In 1901 he was recalled to Britain to claim the office of Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department. In 1903 he was promoted to Commissioner.
In 1906, Henry was knighted; in 1910 he was made Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath.
Attempted assassination
On Wednesday, November 27, 1912, while at his home in Kensington, Henry survived an assassination attempt by one Alfred Bowes (variously reported as Albert Bowes), a disgruntled cab driver whose license application had been refused. Bowes fired three shots with a revolver; two missed, and the third pierced Henry's abdomen, missing all the vital organs. Henry's chauffeur then tackled his assailant. Bowes faced the death penalty, but due to Henry's testimony on his behalf received only a prison sentence.
Death and epilogue
On 31 August 1918, Henry resigned as Commissioner following a 44-hour police strike. That November, he was made a baronet, and in 1920 he and his family retired to Berkshire. Henry died there in 1931 of a heart attack.
His grave lay unattended for many years. In April 1992, it was located in the cemetery adjoining All Souls Church, South Ascot, and thanks to a campaign by the Fingerprint Society, the grave was renovated in 1994.