Physician. Born in Beith, North Ayrshire, Scotland to a prosperous family, but at age 12 his family finances failed after the Glasgow bank collapse and he was withdrawn from school to enter the workforce. He was initially employed as a clerk, and in 1858 he became apprenticed to a shawl maker. At 21, he took classes at Glasgow University in mathematics, classics, and divinity, before enrolling in at Anderson's Institution (present day University of Strathclyde), Glasgow, to study medicine. In 1873, he took a position with the Church of Scotland as medical missionary in Darjeeling, India. In 1874, he became the first medical missionary for the United Presbyterian church in Tokyo, Japan. It was there he established the Tsukiji Hospital, serving as surgeon superintendent. He became fluent in Japanese, taught at the local university, was offered a post as personal physician to the Imperial House, and founded the Tokyo Institute for the Blind for which he developed a system of raised script to allow the blind to read - a forerunner of the modern day Braille system. About 1878, after making the acquaintance of visiting American archaeologist, Edward Morse, he visited a dig site where he noticed finger patterns on ancient clay vessels. This finding led him to the scientific study of fingerprints. Over several years, he amassed a significant collection of prints, eventually discovering each person had a unique fingerprint. In 1880, he submitted a paper on the subject, 'On the Skin-Furrows of the Hand,' published in the scientific journal, 'Nature,' even suggesting that registers be kept of "the forever-unchangeable finger-furrows of important criminals." He returned to Britain about 1886, and offered his fingerprinting system to Scotland Yard who declined the offer. In 1888, he published a memoir, 'Nine Years in Nipon.' Despite the fact that he published nothing further on fingerprints until 1905, Faulds became deeply embittered about what he saw as a lack of recognition for his efforts and engaged in an argument via correspondence with Sir William Herschel who also wrote 'Nature' in support of the idea of fingerprinting, explaining that he had been using fingerprints as a means to identify criminals in jail since 1857, but as a signature substitute and failed to consider the potential for forensic use. And after 1892, when Francis Galton published a book on the use of fingerprints, and in 1901, Edward Henry, Commissioner of Police at Scotland Yard, finally set up a fingerprint bureau. He became a police surgeon in Fenton, Staffordshire until 1922, when he sold his practice, and retired to Wolstanton.