Detectives Say: The Development of Handwriting Analysis and Expert Deduction
Sherlock Holmes was an early practitioner of handwriting analysis to solve crime, but in the late 19th Century, expert handwriting analysis was one of the key tools that detectives could use against writers of accustaotry, libelous, and bizarre anonymous letter writers.
In this excerpt from Penning Poison: A History of Anonymous Letters, Emily Cockayne explores the changing attitudes and practice towards handwriting analysis.
The allure of deduction and the appeal of the amateur detective made fantastic partners for graphology and document analysis as the century drew near its end. Sherlock Holmes asks of his companion: ‘Have you ever had occasion to study character in handwriting? What do you make of this fellow’s scribble?’ ‘It is legible and regular’, answers Dr Watson, ‘a man of business habits and some force of character’. Holmes shakes his head. ‘Look at his long letters,’ he advises,
They hardly rise above the common herd. That d might be an a, and that l an e. Men of character always differentiate their long letters, however illegibly they may write. There is vacillation in his k’s and self-esteem in his capitals.
This conversation appears in The Sign of Four, from 1890. The number of self-proclaimed handwriting experts had been gradually increasing over two decades. Among them were those who thought that a person’s handwriting revealed not only identity but inner character or personality. Graphology — the so-called science of deducing character from script — also gained followers during this time. Perhaps Conan Doyle was acquainted with such works as Character Indicated by Handwriting by Rosa Baughan first published in 1880.
“The number of self-proclaimed handwriting experts had been gradually increasing over two decades. Among them were those who thought that a person’s handwriting revealed not only identity but inner character or personality.”
Baughan described Florence Nightingale’s ‘d’ as expressing ‘tenderness and generosity, and sweetness’ — ‘the first indicated by the sloping line of the upstroke, the last by the rounded and gracious curves of the final’. Baughan later published works on equally dubious arts such as physiognomy and palmistry. Sherlock is close to the same nonsense when he discerns ‘vacillation in his k’s’. What links the two texts and their liking of graphological inference is the Victorian obsession with the exposure of a person’s true ‘character’… [This] love of spectacular and authentic disclosure played several other roles in the history of anonymous letter-writing of the time.
Over the course of the century, more and more people — and especially prospective letter-writers — were becoming aware of the possibility that handwriting could be used for identification even when disguised. It is perhaps significant that when Conan Doyle returned to the theme, in The Hound of the Baskervilles, (serialized in a newspaper 1901–02) the anonymous note of warning sent to Sir Henry Baskerville is largely devoid of handwriting; its words cut and pasted from The Times. From the choice of newspaper Holmes deduces that the sender is an ‘educated’ man. The method, decides Holmes, was chosen in an ‘effort to conceal [the writer’s] own writing’ suggesting ‘that that writing might be known, or come to be known’. Only the last word — ‘moor’ — is handwritten. Holmes says this is because it was a hard word to find in the paper in a hurry, (but of course Conan Doyle wanted to emphasize it for literary reasons).
The fictitious scenes of Sherlock Holmes examining anonymous letters between 1890 and 1902 perhaps reflect a Victorian arms race between letter-writers and detectives — detectives of many stripes.
By the time Sherlock Holmes appeared in 1887, there was already a growing rift between amateurs less gifted than Holmes and what Twisleton in the Preface to The Handwriting of Junius called a new kind of expert. The word ‘expert’, wrote Twisleton:
is often used very loosely. It is frequently used to designate lithographers, or gentlemen connected with banks, who come forward as witnesses once or twice in their lives to express their belief that a particular document was or was not written by a certain individual. The word has, then, a meaning very different from that of general experts in handwriting, recognised as such in courts of justice . . . I have been assured that during the last fifty years the number of such experts in London has been very few.
Eventually, such expertise came to be seen as an occupation in itself. As Twisleton states, it had previously been a skill offered by other professionals when necessary. The early nineteenth century had seen various experts called upon to give advice in anonymous letter cases, especially post-office officials. Thomas Coleback, The Inspector of Franks… was later involved in a case in Staffordshire. In 1805 John Warburton, the manufacturer of earthenware in Cobridge, had been accused of sending ‘infamous’ anonymous letters to ‘certain virtuous & respectable’ local women. Warburton refused to sign a ‘humiliating apology’, worried that this would be seen as an admission of guilt and might damage his relations with the women. Discovering that the vicar of St John’s in Hanley had been repeating accusations about Warburton being the author, he went to the press, to ‘solicit those who have the Papers’ to hand them in to be scrutinized. Warburton implored the prosecution to end ‘this scandalous affair’ which he felt was contrived by ‘some gossiping simpleton, with intent to irritate me’. Warburton was suspected on the basis of the opinion of ‘a person employed at the General Post Office’: Thomas Coleback, who did not appear to have the backing of his own superior.
“Over the course of the century, more and more people — and especially prospective letter-writers — were becoming aware of the possibility that handwriting could be used for identification even when disguised.”
One of the most famous of the new Victorian handwriting experts was Chabot himself. He was of Huguenot descent, and had started out as a lithographer. Chabot died in 1882 with ‘a large private practice as an expert, and his skill was in much request in the Law Courts’. His evidence was used in the Roupell case of 1862–63 and also the later Tichborne case. The Scottish lawyer Alexander Wood Renton argued that Chabot ‘raised the expert’s craft from an art’, and put the profession on a scientific standing ‘by showing the world that a scientific witness could give evidence without improper bias’. Chabot drew attention ‘not to incidental and often imaginary peculiarities in the writings submitted to him, but to the character of the writer portrayed there, which cannot be permanently disguised’. Chabot died just as the profession he helped to establish was cementing its reputation.
Emily Cockayne is Associate Professor in Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia. The author of several well-known books, including Hubbub (2007; second edition 2020), Cheek by Jowl. A History of Neighbours (2012), and Rummage (2020), Emily’s research ranges freely across modern English social and cultural history. It is characterized by extensive primary research, immersion, and a delight in sleuthing.
