Allan Pinkerton

America’s most famous private investigator and founder of Criminal Investigation in USA. He
established the practice of handwriting examination in America courts and promoted a plan to centralize
identification records.
In the United States, Allan Pinkerton established the Pinkerton National Detective Agency – a private
detective agency in 1850. Pinkerton became famous when he foiled a plot to assassinate then President-
elect Abraham Lincoln in 1861. Pinkerton's agents performed services which ranged from undercover
investigations and detection of crimes, to plant protection and armed security. Allan Pinkerton hired Kate
Warne in 1856 as a private detective, making her the first female private detective in America. Pinkerton
produced numerous popular detective books, ostensibly based on his own exploits and those of his agents.
Some were published after his death, and they are considered to have been more motivated by a desire to
promote his detective agency than a literary endeavor.

Eugene ”Francois” Vidocq

He was a criminal who turned Paris investigator. He is a former convict who became a notorious thief-
catcher in France. He is credited as the founder of “LA SURETE”, France national detective organization.
He made popular the concept of “SET A THIEF OF CATCH A THIEF”. He introduced the concept of
“TRADE PROTECTION SOCIETY”, which is a forerunner of our present-day credit card system. For a
fee, any owner of a shop or business establishment could obtain particulars pertaining concerning the
financial solvency of new customers. He created a squad of ex-convicts to aid the Paris in crime
investigation.
Vidocq is credited with having introduced record-keeping, criminology, and ballistics to criminal
investigation. He made the first plaster casts of shoe impressions. He created indelible ink and unalterable
bond paper with his printing company. His form of anthropometrics is still partially used by French
police. He is also credited for philanthropic pursuits – he claimed he never informed on anyone who had
stolen for real need.

Sir John Fielding

The younger brother of Henry Fielding who took over the control of Bow Street Court in 1753. His
investigators were then called Bow Street Runners and became quite effective because of his personal
guidance despite the fact that he was blind. He introduced the practice of developing paid informants,
printing wanted notices, employing criminal raids, and bearing firearms and handcuffs.

John Fielding was blinded in an accident at the age of 19. Despite this handicap he was appointed a
magistrate in London, at first as his brother’s assistant, about 1750, and soon became locally famous as
the “Blind Beak,” who was reputedly able to recognize some 3,000 thieves by their voices. With his
brother he was a founder of the Bow Street Runners, and he persuaded the government to contribute to
the expenses of his small force of professional detectives. He also provided for the circulation among the
police and the public of descriptions of offenders.
 Henry Fielding

An Englishman who wrote a novel entitled” Tom Jones” and was appointed as magistrate (sheriff) for the
areas of Westminster and Middle Age, London. He was the creator of the BOW STREET RUNNERS
while he was the magistrate; he formed a group of police officers attached to Bow Street Court, and not in
uniform, performing criminal investigative functions.

Jonathan Wild

Jonathan Wild, also spelled Wilde, was a London underworld figure notable for operating on both sides of
the law, posing as a public-spirited crimefighter entitled the "Thief-Taker General". He was buckle maker
then a brothel operator; a master criminal who became London’s most effective criminal investigator. He
was the most famous THIEF-CATCHER in 1720s. His methods or techniques made popular the logic of
EMPLOYING A THIEF TO CATCH A THIEF. He conceived the idea of charging a fee for locating and
returning stolen property to its rightful owners. He was featured in novels, poems, and plays, some of
them noting parallels between Wild and the contemporaneous Prime Minister Walpole, known as "The
Great Corrupter".

Kate Wayne

Kate Wayne was the first female detective, in 1856, in the Pinkerton Detective Agency and the United
States. Warne was a master of disguise: From portraying herself as a fortune teller to lure suspects into
telling her their secrets, rich society matrons, to changing her Northern mannerisms into a Southern
accent to play the role of a “flirty Southern belle” from Mongomery, Alabama, in the Pinkerton National
Detective Agency’s paramount case: The Baltimore Plot. She continued to serve until 1868, when she
died from a sudden illness. She is buried at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago in the Pinkerton Family Plot.
In March of 1868, memoriam was written in the Democratic Enquirer on Warne’s life as a private
detective: “Up to the time of her death, her whole life had been devoted to the service into which she had
entered in her younger years. She was undoubtedly the best female detective in America, if not the
world.”

Inspector Thomas Brynes

Thomas Byrnes became one of the most famous crime fighters of the late 19th century by supervising the
newly created detective division of the New York Police Department. Known for his relentless drive to
innovate, Byrnes was widely credited for pioneering the use of modern police tools such as mugshots.
Byrnes was also known to get very rough with criminals, and openly boasted of having invented a harsh
interrogation technique he called "the third degree." And though Byrnes was widely lauded at the time,
some of his practices would be unacceptable in the modern era. He is a New York Chief of Detectives
introduced the MODUS OPERANDI FILE.
 Charles Dickens

Through his story entitled BLEAK HOUSE, he introduced the term DETECTIVE to the English
language. Charles Dickens had a particular fascination in the development of the police force in
London and would occasionally accompany police constables on their nightly rounds.

Dr. Paul Kirk

Paul Leland Kirk was a chemist, forensic scientist and participant in the Manhattan Project who was
specialized in microscopy. Kirk is also known for his contributions to literature on criminology. In 1953,
he published Crime Investigation, one of the first crime scene investigation books to include both
practical information and theory. Here Kirk presents techniques for examining physical evidence at crime
scenes, including chapters on fingerprints, fibers, hair, blood, tracks and trails, firearms, and vehicular
accidents. Because of its popularity, the book has since been reprinted many times. He was best known
American criminalist who headed the Department of Criminalistics as the University of California, USA.

Sir Robert Peel

Sir Robert Peel was a British politician who served two terms as prime minister and two terms as home
secretary. Because he founded the Metropolitan Police Force at Scotland Yard, he is known as the father
of British policing. The constables that he employed were known as "bobbies" or "peelers" in reference to
his name. This act had a tremendous impact on the history of criminal justice in general, and on the
development of criminal investigation specifically. He introduced the techniques of detecting crimes such
as: detectives concealing themselves, and secretly photographing and recording conservations.

Hans Gross

Gross noticed the faults in the justice system early on in his career. His efforts focused on expanding deep
investigation, professional ethics, and the scientific method. Relating the concept of the crime scene,
Gross explains the necessity of balancing emotion with evidence and evidence with logic. Hans fully
introduced the concept of criminalistics in 1893, a period in which the notion of criminology
expanded. The concept of criminalistics is divided into two branches: crime and political science. Even
though Gross found a new way in which the justice system functioned, many believed the field of
criminalistics proved useless, except for examining justices. However, Gross still contributed in
furthering criminology for other magistrates in law. He called for the objective use and examination of
evidence. He stressed the importance of a judge remaining neutral in cases. He did this, mainly, by
presenting new concepts in the examination of crime scenes, such as crime scene
photography, fingerprints, microscopy, and X-rays.
 Francis Galton

Sir Francis Galton, He was a pioneer in eugenics, coining the term itself and the phrase "nature versus
nurture". His book Hereditary Genius (1869) was the first social scientific attempt to study genius and
greatness. As an investigator of the human mind, he founded psychometrics (the science of measuring
mental faculties) and differential psychology and the lexical hypothesis of personality. He devised a
method for classifying fingerprints that proved useful in forensic science. He also conducted research on
the power of prayer, concluding it had none by its null effects on the longevity of those prayed for. His
quest for the scientific principles of diverse phenomena extended even to the optimal method for making
tea.