Fingerprints: Murder and the Race to Uncover the Science of Identity (Astrolog Complete Guides) [Hardcover]

Beaven, a journalist and trained physicist, tells his story through the prism of a particular turn-of-the-century East End murder, the first case where fingerprints proved absolutely crucial to detection and conviction. Using this springboard, Beaven dives into the history of criminal investigation, surfacing with such pearls as the 19th century Scottish missionary who discovered prints on ancient Japanese pottery, the Victorian geneticist Francis Galton who thought certain kinds of prints indicated intellectual prowess, and the scandalous 1896 jailing of "con artist" Adolf Beck--a man who would have been proved innocent had the value of fingerprint evidence been more widely acknowledged at the time.

If that list infers the book is narrowly focused on the late Victorian age, it shouldn't. Beaven is, if anything, a historical jackdaw: he also sees fit to include the "supernatural ordeals" of Medieval justice, the establishment of investigating juries way back in 1215, the Italian innovations in law and criminology that came with the Renaissance, and much, much else. The result is a witty, readable, concise, informative, lucid, highly entertaining bouillabaisse of history, anecdote, criminal lore and truly popular science. --Sean Thomas

‘Beavan’s effortless prose, firm grasp of his subject and vividly drawn characters will delight.’ Publisher’s Weekly

The extraordinary true story of the development of the science of identity and the history of fingerprint detection.

In 1905 an elderly couple were found murdered in their shop in Deptford, London. The only evidence at the scene of the crime was a sweaty fingerprint on a cashbox. Was it possible that a single fingerprint could be enough to lead to a conviction? Could the pattern of these tracks hold the secrets of the science of identification?

Through the story of three brilliant men: William Herschel, a colonial administrator in Indian, Henry Faulds, a missionary in Japan and Charles Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, the extraordinary story of the history of fingerprinting is revealed.

It is a story of intellectual skulduggery and scientific brilliance. Packed with an extraordinary cast of individuals whose scientific breakthroughs helped solve one of the most brutal murders in English history and shape our understanding of identity forever.

In 1905 an elderly couple were found murdered in their shop in Deptford, London. The only evidence at the scene of the crime was a sweaty fingerprint on a cashbox. Was it possible that a single fingerprint could be enough to lead to a conviction? Could the pattern of these tracks hold the secrets of the science of identification?

Fifty years earlier, William Herschel, the colonial administrator in India, had begun to experiment with fingerprints as an irrefutable method of establishing identity. In the 1880's, Henry Faulds, a missionary in Japan, began to study the formation of the whorls, arches and loops on each finger and was the first to ask whether these traces could be the unique key to identifying every individual.

Whilst police and scientists alike were ignoring Faulds's discovery, other thinkers were working on complex, alternative methods of identification. In France, anthropometry, a system of measuring parts of the body was the first scientific method used to catch criminals. But it was in England, through the studies of Francis Galton, Charles Darwin's cousin, that the study of fingerprints became the recognised science of dactylography.
Impeccably researched and vividly told, Beaven recreates the nineteenth-century race to find a scientific method of identification.

Fingerprints is a story packed with an extraordinary cast of individuals whose scientific breakthroughs helped solve one of the most brutal murders in English history and shape our understanding of identity forever.

Colin Beavan is a magazine journalist writing for ‘Esquire’ and ‘Atlantic Monthly’. He gained his Ph.D in applied physics from the University of Liverpool.