William Lingwood Smith pioneer of fingerprinting – among South Australian police firsts in the crime fight
South Australian police detective photographer William Lingwood Smith (1888-1922) pioneered fingerprinting techniques.
As an author and painter, police commissioner George Hamilton (1867-82) saw the artistic merits of photography – and set off a series of firsts in crime-solving techniques by South Australian police.
Hamilton also could see the merits of photography in police investigations. They tied in with his reforms within the detective branch of the service in 1876. In the late 1860s, he appointed detective Von Der Borch as South Australian police’s official photographer. This was followed in 1880 by Hamilton introducing the scientific analysis of handwriting, with detective Peter Webster as the first handwriting expert.
William Lingwood Smith joined the South Australian police force in 1888 where he worked as a detective photographer until he retired in 1922. During that time, he pioneered fingerprinting in 1894 and became an expert in that technique with the criminal investigation branch of the South Australian Police Department. In the 20th Century, South Australian police continued to lead the way in adopting new technologies.
In 1987, it was the first Australian police service to introduce videotaping of “suspect person” interviews. And, again at the start of the 21st Century, South Australia introduced Australia’s most wide-reaching laws, in 2002, to allow DNA testing of crime suspects.
The South Australian government had already devised legislation to DNA test all prisoners in jails and all people suspected of serious crimes. But amendments to the laws allowed police to gather DNA samples from even those suspected of lesser crimes such as car theft, carrying an offensive weapons, and gross indecency without a need for a court order. If a person was found to be innocent of the crime, the DNA sample would be destroyed but only if requested by the accused.
Premier Mike Rann decided to widen plans for compulsory DNA testing after talks with the police commissioner and police association. Rann said complaints by civil libertarians, lawyers and criminals would’ve been the same when finger printing was introduced.
