Edmund Frederick Du Cane

Fort Burgoyne was but one of several fortifications in Dover designed by
Edmund Frederick Du Cane.
Born March 23 rd 1830 in Colchester, Essex, Edmund Du Cane was youngest child of Eliza
[nee Ware] and Major Richard Du Cane of the 20 th Light Dragoons who died when
Edmund was only 2 years old. The Du Cane family descended from Jean de Quesne, an
elder of the French Protestant church, who fled, through Flanders, to avoid persecution;
settling, first, in Canterbury and later London. Descended through Jean’s, or John’s,
fourth son Peter, who appears to have been responsible for the Anglicisation of the
family name, Edmund Du Cane also counts among his predecessors, a Director of the
Bank of England, a Director of the East India Company and the Vicar of Coggeshall, a
village some 9 miles to West of Colchester.
Educated at Dedham Grammar School, NE of Colchester, and subsequently at a private
establishment in Wimbledon, Edmund Du Cane entered the Royal Military Academy at
Woolwich November 1846, aged 16, and passed out 2 years later head of his intake,
having achieved first place in the subjects of both Mathematics and Fortification, before
receiving a commission as Second Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers December 1848.
Du Cane was posted to a company commanded by Captain Henry Cunliffe-Owen, a
Veteran of the campaign against the insurgent Boers as well as the Kaffir war of 1846–7.
In November 1850, Cunliffe-Owen was permitted to accept an appointment under the
Royal Commission for the exhibition of 1851 which took place in Hyde Park, London and

would become more widely known as the Crystal Palace Exhibition in reference to the
temporary structure in which it was held. With the exhibition opened Cunliffe-Owen
became its General Superintendent and Du Cane his Assistant Superintendent of the
Foreign Side as well as Assistant Secretary to the Juries of Awards.
Cunliffe-Owen would go on to be appointed Assistant Inspector-General of Fortifications
at the War Office, and, in April 1856, Deputy Inspector-General of Fortifications under
the command of Sir John Fox Burgoyne.
Following the success of the International Exhibition Edmund Du Cane found himself
posted to Western Australia, under the command of Captain Edmund Henderson, where
he would spend the next 5 years organising convict labour in the colony centred around
modern day Perth and known informally as Swan River, after the area's major river.
The first 75 convicts had arrived in Fremantle, now part of the modern day Perth
Metropolitan Area, June 1st 1850 and, such was the unpreparedness of the colony, they
were housed in an old wool warehouse until they had finished constructing the Convict
Establishment, later known as Fremantle Prison. Du Cane was promoted First Lieutenant
February 1854, and placed in charge of works in the Eastern District of the colony. He
was also made a magistrate of the colony and a visiting magistrate of convict stations.
During his time in Western Australia Du Cane also married his first wife Mary Dorothea
Molloy in St John’s Church, Fremantle July 1855
Recalled early 1856 due to the requirements of the Crimean War, Edmund and Mary
departed Fremantle February 25th on the ‘Esmeralda’ along with another officer, William
Crossman, Sergeant James Lowrie, sixteen Sappers, one of whom was invalided, and two
buglers. Captain Henderson and his six year old son were also on board with the Captain
allowed compassionate leave following the death of his wife the previous December, he
did not return to the Colony until 1858 during which time Henry Ray was his Deputy.
’Esmeralda was severely overcrowded and a shortage of both water and supplies
required stops at the Cape of Good Hope and St Helena as well as purchases from
passing ships.
Esmeralda – sketch by E F DuCane from Alexandra Hasluck’s book ‘A Life of Sir Edmund DuCane

With no small degree of irony, the Paris Peace Conference had begun the very day
Esmeralda left Fremantle and by the time the ship reached England in June the Crimean
war had ended. Notably, however, the passenger manifest had grown since leaving
Fremantle as Mary Du Cane had given birth to her and Edmund’s first son during the
voyage.
Du Cane reported for duty at the War Office August that year, under the Inspector-
General of Fortification, Lieutenant General Sir John Burgoyne G.C.B, where he was
employed compiling designs and estimates for the new defences proposed for the
dockyards and naval bases of the United Kingdom.
Promoted Second Captain April 1858, over the course of the next five years Du Cane was
responsible for the design of the chain of land forts at Plymouth, Devon from Fort
Staddon to Ernesettle on the River Tamar as well as most of the new land works at
Dover, including Fort Burgoyne and the Officers Mess at The Citadel, Du Cane’s third
child Hubert John being born during the family’s time in Dover.
The Officers Mess at The Citadel, Dover
With Britain announcing its intention to cease the policy of transportation, Captain
Henderson was returned to Britain and appointed Chairman of Directors and Surveyor-
General of Prisons and Inspector-General of Military Prisons July 1863. On Henderson’s
recommendation Edmund Du Cane was appointed Director of Convict Prisons, as well as
an Inspector of Military Prisons. In this capacity Du Cane administered the reformations
of the 1865 Prison Act which sought not only to establish a return to the attitude of
strict punishment rather than the attempts to reform prisoners through separation or
silence but to also address rising concerns about the uncoordinated and incoherent
nature of the prison system in Britain. The Act increased central controls over gaols
which were, at the time, operated by local authorities; although many local practices
continued to vary until the 1877 Act which fully transferred responsibilities to The Home
Secretary working with the newly established Board of Prison Commissioners.

A further responsibility of the 1865 Act was to make arrangements for additional prison
accommodation required by the imminent abolition of penal transportation.
Still only 39 years of age Du Cane succeeded Edmund Henderson, in 1869, as Chairman
of the Board of Directors of Convict Prisons, Surveyor-General of Prisons, and Inspector-
General of Military Prisons. The same year saw the changes in the colonial convict prison
system which responsibility was transferred to Du Cane.
An advocate of using prison labour for public works, Du Cane authorised Convicts to
carry out works on various defence installations, including the breakwater, at Portland
and the docks at both Portsmouth and Chatham as well as using this Labour Force to
build additional prison accommodation including London’s Wormwood Scrubs prison
which was built to Edmund Du Cane’s design and specification.
Work began at ‘The Scrubs’ late 1874 with the construction of a small prison made from
corrugated iron alongside a temporary shed to which served as a barracks for the
Warders, by a small group of prisoners each of them within a year of their release. This
initial construction was then used to accommodate 50 more prisoners who erected an
additional temporary prison wing before, then, being employed to manufacture bricks at
the site. By the summer of 1875, enough bricks had been made to begin building the
prison's first block, it’s ground floor having been completed by the year’s end.
HMP Wormwood Scrubs
By now promoted through the ranks to that of Brevet-Colonel, signifying rank in the
British Army overall, but not within a Regiment, Du Cane oversaw the implementation of
the 1877 Prison Act under which all prisons came under direct government control, the
rules governing their administration standardised and staff co-ordinated into a single
Prison Service with a regular system of promotion.
The cost of maintaining the prison system was largely reduced as a consequence, as was,
in short time, the overall number of prisons. A more progressive system of discipline was
introduced and assistance offered to the discharged prisoner in finding gainful
employment on release.
Additionally Du Cane inaugurated the formal registration of criminals, overseeing the
production of the first "Black Book" list; printed using convict labour, the register listed

over 12,000 habitual criminals recording their known aliases and descriptions. This
register was soon expanded to record criminal’s distinctive body marks.
Benefiting from the knowledge and support of renowned polymath Sir Francis Galton,
Du Cane proposed that types of feature in different kinds of criminality were worthy of
scientific study, in the process, encouraging Galton’s exploration of a technique known
as Composite Portraiture whereby multiple photographic portraits of individual’s images
were superimposed so as to assist with the identification of ‘typical’ criminal faces.
Although this particular technique did not prove overly useful Du Cane also encouraged
the use of Galton's finger print system in the identification of criminals. Galton had been
introduced to the possibilities of using fingerprints in this way by his half-cousin Charles
Darwin, a friend of Henry Faulds who had first proposed the forensic potential of Sir
William Herschel’s exploration of the concept of using fingerprints as a method of
identification in the 1860s. Galton went on to create the first scientific footing for the
study which, in due course, led to its acceptance by the Courts. Galton estimated the
probability of two persons having the same fingerprint and classified those prints into
eight broad categories: 1: plain arch, 2: tented arch, 3: simple loop, 4: central pocket
loop, 5: double loop, 6: lateral pocket loop, 7: plain whorl, and 8: accidental, a system
that still maintains.
Sir Francis Galton
Having married his second wife Florence Saunderson (widow formerly Grimston) at St
Margaret’s Church, Westminster January 1883 and been raised to the honorary rank of
Major-General, Edmund Du Cane CB, KCB retired from the army December 1887, and
from the civil service in March 1895. Construction of Wormwood Scrubs Prison had been
completed in 1891 and the road on which it was located named Du Cane Road.
Edmund Du Cane died at his residence in London’s Portman Square June 7th 1903, aged
73, and was buried in Great Braxted churchyard Essex, close to the estate purchased in
1751 by Peter Du Cane of nearby Coggeshall, a wealthy cloth merchant, High Sheriff and
Member of Parliament descended from Huguenot ancestors by the name of 'Du
Quesne'.
With thanks to Andy Rayner and https://sappers-minerswa.com
(c) 2022 Dover Tales for The Land Trust