Logo of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency Although little-remembered today, Pollaky's fame at the time was such that he was mentioned in various books of the 1870s and immortalized as 'Paddington' Pollaky for his 'keen penetration' in the 1881 comic opera, Patience. In 1862, one of his employees, the Hungarian Ignatius Paul Pollaky, left him and set up a rival agency. Field became a friend of Charles Dickens, and the latter wrote articles about him. In the United Kingdom, Charles Frederick Field set up an enquiry office upon his retirement from the Metropolitan Police in 1852. He is also credited for philanthropic pursuits – he claimed he never informed on anyone who had stolen for real need. His form of anthropometrics is still partially used by French police. He created indelible ink and unalterable bond paper with his printing company. He made the first plaster casts of shoe impressions. Vidocq is credited with having introduced record-keeping, criminology, and ballistics to criminal investigation. He was sentenced to five years and fined 3,000 francs, but the Court of Appeals released him. Vidocq later suspected that it had been a set-up. In 1842, police arrested him in suspicion of unlawful imprisonment and taking money on false pretences after he had solved an embezzlement case. Official law enforcement tried many times to shut it down. Much of what private investigators did in the early days was to act as the police in matters for which their clients felt the police were not equipped or willing to do. In 1833, Eugène François Vidocq, a French soldier, criminal, and privateer, founded the first known private detective agepour le commerce et l'Industrie' ('The Office of Universal Information For Commerce and Industry') and hired ex-convicts. 1859 illustration of Vidocq arresting a robber after tracking him down

Detective agency names