Henry Faulds

He married Isabella Wilson in September 1873.

He died on 24 March 1930, at the age of 86.

Henry Faulds was born on 1 June 1843 in Beith, Scotland. His parents were initially wealthy but lost much of their fortunes following the City of Glasgow bank collapse in 1855.

Unable to continue his education for want of funds, he dropped out of school as a 13 year old and found employment as a clerk. Later on he became apprenticed to a shawl manufacturer.

After working for a few years he decided to further his education. He was a bright young man and at the age of 21 he started attending classes in mathematics, logic, and classics at Glasgow University.

When he was 25 he realized that his true passion was medicine and enrolled at Anderson's College, Glasgow, and graduated with a physician's license.

As a college student, Henry Faulds became deeply religious and following his graduation he became a medical missionary for the Church of Scotland. He was sent to British India in 1871 where he worked for two years at a hospital for the poor in Darjeeling.

He joined the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland in 1873. Accompanied by his new wife, he travelled to Japan the same year in order to establish a medical mission.

Upon reaching Japan he established the first Scottish mission with the Tsukiji hospital and a teaching facility for Japanese medical students. He proved to be a very capable physician and soon gained respect among the locals.

He was influential in the founding of the Rakuzenkai, Japan's first society for the blind, in 1875 and a school for the blind in 1880. He also set up lifeguard stations in nearby canals to prevent drowning.

He also became involved in several other pursuits in addition to his full-time work as a doctor. Once he accompanied his friend, American archaeologist, Edward S. Morse, to an archaeological dig. While examining the cooking pots made of clay, he noticed the minute patterns of lines and swirls impressed in the clay.

Henry Faulds is remembered for his seminal work in the development of fingerprinting. His paper on the subject titled ‘On the Skin-Furrows of the Hand’, which was published in the scientific journal ‘Nature’ was the first scientific literature to suggest the basic concepts of the fingerprint system of identification. In spite of his pioneering work in the field he never got the recognition he deserved during his lifetime.