Image and Narrative points contributed by Karin Tearle, Shahila Mitchell – UK, with expert inputs from Prof. Projit Mukharji – USA
This is a photograph of our great grandfather Charles Richard Hardless, his son Charles Edward and the Nizam of Hyderabad’s court staff, taken in Hyderabad State (now Andhra Pradesh) in 1912. Our great grandfather was at the time a detective superintendent and the government’s first handwriting expert. He had been engaged by the Nizam Mir Osam Ali to help foil a conspiracy to overthrow his reign, and is seen here examining some documents. My great grandfather was what Prof. Projit Mukharji and other experts deem ‘The founder of a dynasty of graphologists’.
Our great-grandfather, Charles Richard Hardless was born in 1866 in Calcutta (now Kolkata, West Bengal). We believe that his father worked with the East India Company and as was customary in most British families in India, Charles along with his other siblings were brought up between Calcutta and UK. Charles had a keen eye for detection detail and inspired by an uncle, John H. Hardless, an administrator in the British Indian Railways and a trained graphologist (Hand-writing expert) – Charles taught himself the same skill but with a lot more ingenuity. By the 1870s, the Calcutta police had established an exceptionally skilled and large Detective Unit (especially after the infamous Amherst Street murder and Ezra Street murder cases). The department was constantly on the look out for expertise that could help them solve criminal cases in the subcontinent – a empirical region that was still culturally unfamiliar and whose diverse acumen, even on crime, they were constantly trying to catch up with.
In London, Charles Richard left school early, and after a brief stint at the accountant-general’s office in Bengal he joined the Posts & Telegraph Department in Calcutta in 1904 as a handwriting expert on railway and postal frauds, quickly rising to a permanent post. Interestingly, his appointment happened to coincide with a notorious case of mistaken identity/wrongful conviction in England, that relied on handwriting expertise. Based on that, in 1908 the British Indian government persuaded London officials to appoint my great grandfather as the first ‘Government Handwriting Expert’ with the Calcutta Police. In 1909, he served high profile cases as a graphology expert such as the Alipore Bombing case and later for the defense, on the infamous identity theft / Impostor case in Dhaka – The Bhawal Sanyasi case.
Trained in about 16 languages including Mandarin (China), Bengali and Hindi, the great grandfather travelled widely, helping with cases and representing court expertise, from Rangoon to Peshawar and from Colombo to Bombay. With rising repute, within a few years he resigned from the government to establish his own investigation practice with his sons, and began receiving high profile commissions from several Princely estates including the Nizam of Hyderabad.
My grandfather had an equally interesting personal life albeit it would have caused him a lot of turmoil. He married four times. His first wife Lilian Isabella died at the age of 29 of Cholera in 1899. The second wife, Mary Keogh, probably died of Septicemia in 1901 at the age of 27 after child birth. The third wife, Louise Maud Philbrick (my great grandmother) died in 1924 and the last wife, Phyllis, died in 1942. Clearly, he raised a very large family including Anglo-Indian descendants, many of whom are still scattered in India. Though they lived in Calcutta, at 17 Park Lane, Charles Richard gained many favours by the monarchs he served, for instance in 1917 he came into possession of an estate, The Sanctuary, in Chunar (now UP) most likely gifted by the Nizam. The bunglow on the estate was based on Italian Mansion blueprints sent to him by the Nizam. In Chunar, my great grandmother Louise established an extensive library.
Some of the family was actively involved in the investigation and detective practice even while its patriarch Charles Richard was alive. And after his death in 1944, my great grandfather’s three sons continued his legacy. The oldest, Charles Edward (in photo), fine tuned and upgraded their graphology techniques. Philip William Ravenshaw ventured into forensic chemistry and the youngest, my grandfather, Harold Richard Gordon developed techniques on Ballistics. They expanded their services to other parts of subcontinent and even established their own publishing and press Hardless & Hardless that published several books on criminology, and a quarterly journal. We still possess the first edition book entitled ‘Forgery in India, A Practical Treatise on the Detection of Forgery dealing with the languages of India’ (1920), a book that is still taught in Indian Law schools. In 1938 they even set up the School of Document Investigation, at 19 – Hastings Road, Allahabad.
Many of my great grandfather’s descendants left India in the late 40s/early 50s including my own father Harold Richard (I am aware that there other descendants in India still around, albeit still unknown to us). My grandfather – Harold (senior) stayed on in India and continued to practice criminology until his death in the 1970s. His sister / my aunt Marie Louise Hardless assisted him when he worked from Chunar. Unfortunately, she was murdered at the age of about 53 in the 1990s, apparently by burglars.
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