Sir William James Herschel, 2nd Baronet (9 January 1833 – 24 October 1917)"Michele Triplett's Fingerprint Dictionary: H" (glossary), Michele Triplett, 2006, ''Fprints.nwlean.net'' webpage

was a British ICS officer in India who used

fingerprint A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfac ...

s for identification on

contract A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tr ...

s."Michele Triplett's Fingerprint Dictionary: K" (glossary), Michele Triplett, 2006, ''Fprints.nwlean.net'' webpage
Fprints-K

Personal life

He was born in Slough in Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire), the third child (of twelve) and the eldest son (of three) of the astronomer, John Herschel. His younger brothers were

Alexander Stewart Herschel Alexander Stewart Herschel, DCL, FRS (5 February 1836 – 18 June 1907) was a British astronomer. Although much less well known than his grandfather William Herschel or his father John Herschel, he did pioneering work in meteor spectroscopy. ...

and

John Herschel the Younger Colonel John Herschel (29 October 1837 – 31 May 1921) was an English military engineer, surveyor and astronomer. He was the son of Sir John Herschel, 1st Baronet, and grandson of William Herschel. Biography Herschel was born in Claremont, ...

. On 19 May 1864 he married (Anne) Emma Haldane, youngest daughter of Alfred Hardcastle of Hatcham House, Surrey. She died at the birth of their second son, having borne him 4 children: * Margaret Eliza Emma Herschel (1865–1880) She had a brain tumor early on. * Emma Dorothea Herschel (1867–1954) * Reverend Sir John Charles William Herschel, 3rd Baronet (1869–1950) * Arthur Edward Hardcastle Herschel (1873–1924) He lived at

Warfield Warfield is a village and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire and the borough of Bracknell Forest. History Warfield was originally an Anglo-Saxon settlement and is recorded in the Domesday Book as ''Warwelt'' ic The name is beli ...

in Berkshire and at

Littlemore Littlemore is a district and civil parish in Oxford, England. The civil parish includes part of Rose Hill. It is about southeast of the city centre of Oxford, between Rose Hill, Blackbird Leys, Cowley, and Sandford-on-Thames. The 2011 Censu ...

in Oxforshire. Upon his death the baronetcy passed to his son.

Fingerprinting

Fingerprints taken by William James Herschel 1859-1860

Herschel is credited with being the first European to note the value of

s for identification. He recognized that fingerprints were unique and permanent. Herschel documented his own fingerprints over his lifetime to prove permanence. He was also credited with being the first person to use fingerprints in a practical manner. As early as 1858, working as a British officer for the

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million p ...

at Jangipur in the

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

region of India, he started putting fingerprints on contracts.Sengoopta Chandak, Imprint of the Raj: How Fingerprinting was Born in Colonial Indi

/ref> He worked from his late teens all the way through until 2 years before death.

External links

Arms

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Herschel, William James 1833 births 1917 deaths Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom British forensic scientists People from Slough People from Warfield Administrators in British India English people of Scottish descent English people of German descent

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...