William James Herschel

William James Herschel

Sir William James Herschel, 2nd Baronet (born January 9, 1833 in Slough , England , † October 24, 1917 in Hawkhurst , Kent ) was the first European who had fingerprints attached in addition to signing contracts. He requested this for the first time on July 28, 1858 as an employee in the British civil service in India. He collected fingerprints over a long period of time and was thus able to prove that, on the one hand, they remained the same over the years and, on the other hand, confirmed the assumption that they differ in every person. Herschel was a pioneer for dactyloscopy.

Life

William James Herschel was born the third of twelve children of the astronomer Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet . He was the eldest son and grandson of the astronomer William Herschel (discoverer of the planet Uranus ). His father asked him if he might choose a career other than astronomy . So he joined the British East India Company and was sent to Bengal .

From 1853 to 1878 he stayed in British India . He started his professional career there. After the Sepoy uprising in 1857/1858 the administration in India changed from the society directly to the British state ("the British Raj"). There William James Herschel rose to a secretary of the Treasury ("Board of Revenue"), then in 1872 commissioner ("Commissioner") of Dakka and finally in 1874 commissioner of Cooch Behar .

Herschel came from a family that has an outstanding reputation for its scientists and musical artists . His grandfather, Sir William Herschel (1738–1822), was a famous composer , mathematician and one of the most influential astronomers of his time who discovered the planet Uranus. His sister, Caroline Lucretia Herschel (1750-1848), not only wrote remarkable works on astronomy, but also appeared as a singer . William James' father, John Herschel (1792–1871), was also a noted mathematician and astronomer. His two brothers, Alexander Stewart Herschel (1836–1907) and John Herschel (1837–1921), followed in their father's footsteps and were also astronomers.

When his father died, William James inherited the title of Baronet , of Slough in the County of Buckingham , in 1871 . When he died, the title passed to his only son, Reverend Sir John Herschel .

William James Herschel is buried with his wife Anna Emma Haldane Hardcastle, whom he married in 1864 and who died in 1873, and their daughter Margaret Elizabeth Emma Herschel (1865-1880), at St. Laurence's Church in Hawkhurst, Kent. The University of Oxford awarded him an honorary master's degree in 1884 ("MA Oxon").

In search of security

The first finger and hand prints taken by Herschel from the years 1859/60

The later epochal progress began inconspicuously. From 1858 onwards , William James Herschel , who had been transferred to Jangipur , asked his contractual partners in the Hugli district near Calcutta to give them complete handprints in addition to signing contracts.

Rajyadhar Konai was probably the first to come into contact with this method. On July 28, 1858, his handprint was taken in addition to the signature on a contract by Herschel. Herschel wanted the Bengali entrepreneur to fulfill the contract. He was hoping that with the addition of the item on the contract, Konai would feel more bound by his promise to deliver road construction materials to the agency. Konai should not be able to doubt his signature on the document later.

Herschel continued to experiment with handprints and soon found that it was actually sufficient to use just fingers. He collected prints from friends and family and concluded that a person's fingerprints do not change over time. He suggested to the Governor of Bengal to have fingerprints taken on important documents, for personalization and to prevent a possible rejection of the treaties, but this came to nothing.

In 1860, Herschel became a colonial administrator in the Nadia district . One of his official duties was to ensure that the locals received the pensions to which they were entitled for services rendered to the British, but at the same time to prevent any fraud as much as possible. A high illiteracy rate and thus hardly any individual signature services offered the locals good potential for fraud.

Herschel remembered the success with the handprints. He asked the pensioners to use their fingerprint as a receipt for the receipt of the money when they were paid out. The fingerprints were collected and compared in case of doubt. This created a large pool of illustrative material. The total of all payouts actually went down and Herschel found his passion.

In 1877, Herschel was appointed the highest official ("Magistrate") by Hugli (an office that gave administrative and judicial powers). There he initiated the systematic taking of the pensioners' fingerprints so that their pensions could not be obtained by fraudsters. He began collecting fingerprints from criminals so that their prison term could not be served as a substitute for a swindler hired by the convict. His request to test the system in a small prison in Bengal, however, was rejected.

Back in England

Herschel returned permanently to England in 1878 and in 1880 published a letter in the journal " Nature " in which he explained his experience with fingerprints. The journal previously had an article by Dr. Henry Faulds , who had also worked as a doctor with fingerprints. Both motivated the British government to investigate a possible system of identification using fingerprints.

Herschel had brought his collection of fingerprints from India. He made them available to Francis Galton as study material .

In 1916, the year before he died, Herschel published an account of his work entitled "The Origin of Finger-Printing".

meaning

Fingerprints were attached to treaties by the Babylonians and the Persians centuries earlier . The Chinese and Japanese also used them as a signature . William Herschel is credited with being the first to recognize the value of fingerprints for identification . He was certain that fingerprints were unique and a permanent feature. Herschel documented his own fingerprints throughout his life to test this durability. He was the first to use proven fingerprints for practical purposes.

For much of his life, Herschel is said to have adorned himself with the print from 1858 as proof that he first thought of the fingerprint as a method of identification. It is countered, first, that Herschel used these prints more as a means of intimidation than for identification. Nobody broke their contract. Second, Herschel never suggested its use for police identification of criminals; they were used by him in civil contracts. Regardless of these restrictions, however, he was the first to have a systematic collection of fingerprints over a longer period of time and was able to demonstrate the durability of the fingerprints for years.

Although he developed the technique of fingerprinting, Herschel used it alone as an administrative tool. It never occurred to him that the method could also be used to trap criminals. It was Francis Galton and Edward Richard Henry who, building on Herschel's preparatory work, began using the fingerprint as a tool in the fight against crime.

Works

• The origin of finger-printing bound with classification and uses of finger prints . AMS Press, New York 1974, ISBN 0-404-09119-9 (with Edward R. Henry)

literature

• Colin Beavan: Fingerprints. The origins of crime detection and the murder case that launched forensic science . Hyperion Books, New York 2001, ISBN 0-7868-6607-1 .
• Chandak Sengoopta: Imprint of the Raj. How fingerprinting was born in colonial India . Pan Books, London 2004, ISBN 0-330-49140-7 .

Web links

• Slough History online - William James Herschel and the discovery of fingerprinting (English)
• Book preview "Fingerprints" (English), with an illustration of the handprint from 1858

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Some Memories. For my GrandchildrenMay 1996 ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ History on fingerprints ( Memento from June 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
3. ↑ http://www.answers.com/topic/1880?cat=technology
4. ↑ Fingerprints - The Origins of Crime Detection and the Murder Case that Launched Forensic Science by Colin Beavan ( Memento of October 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

predecessor	Office	successor
John Herschel	Baronet, of Slough 1871-1917	John Herschel