Walter Dinnie

Brother of the strongman Donald Dinnie,^[2] he was born in Aboyne to Robert and Celia Dinnie (nee Hay).^[1] His father worked as a contractor but was also a poet and local historian in his spare time.^[1] After Aberdeen Grammar School and time as a bank clerk, in 1873 he became a clerk for the West Riding of Yorkshire Constabulary before three years later becoming an officer in the Metropolitan Police in London.^[1]

In the latter he moved from clerical to detective work, specialising in forgeries and fraud, such as extraditing Charles Wells in late 1892^[3] and the 'Harry the Valet' case of 1898, the latter alongside Frank Froest and Walter Dew.^[4] After retirement from that force he was appointed Police Commissioner of New Zealand.^[2][1] In 1901 he collaborated with Edward Henry to set up the Met's Fingerprint Department before two years later being headhunted by government of New Zealand to head their police force.^[1]

In the meantime, on 18 October 1883, he had married Frederica Matilda Kemp at Croydon. He left the Met on 6 April 1903^[5] and landed at Wellington with his wife and their five children on 8 June, from which his predecessor John Bennett Tunbridge took him on an inspection tour.^[1] Dinnie imported not only the Met's fingerprint classification system (New Zealand's head of fingerprints from 1904 was Walter's son Edmund) but also opened a New Zealand police museum, probably influenced by the Met's Crime Museum.^[1]

Confidence in Dinnie had dropped by 1907 and reached a low point in 1909, leading him to request a Royal Commission, which painted the force as "thoroughly efficient" but him as incompetent.^[1] He fought back in the press but ultimately the prime minister announced Dinnie's resignation on 22 December 1909.^[1] He remained in the country as president of the Tokerau District Māori Land Board, based in Auckland, in a role that lasted until 1914, when he moved into private detection.^[1] He declined an offer to be Assistant Commissioner of Police in Samoa in 1916. He died in Wellington in 1923 aged 72.^[1]