Henry Faulds (1843–1930)

Scottish physician and developer of fingerprinting. Licentiate of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, 1871. Missionary in India, 1871–3; in Japan, 1873–85. Founded a medical school in 1876, lecturing on surgery and physiology in Japanese, and a school for the blind in 1878. Suggested in a letter to Nature in 1880 that fingerprints might provide a scientific basis for the detection of criminals. Medical assistant in London and Staffordshire, 1885–92; GP and police surgeon at Stoke-on-Trent, 1892–1923.