Edmund Frederick Du Cane

Sir Edmund Frederick Du Cane (23 March 1830 – 7 June 1903) was an English major-general of the Royal Engineers and prison administrator.

After Dedham grammar school to 1843, and a private coaching establishment at Wimbledon (1843–46), he entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in November 1846.

He joined at Chatham, and in December 1850 was posted to a company of royal sappers and miners commanded by Captain Henry Charles Cunliffe-Owen at Woolwich.

[1] From 1851 to 1856 Du Cane was employed in organising convict labour on public works in the colony of Swan River, in Western Australia, which was then first devoted to penal purposes under the command of Captain Edmund Henderson.

Du Cane in 1873 submitted to the secretary of state a comprehensive scheme for the transfer to the government of all local prisons and the whole cost of their maintenance.

In 1877 he produced the first "Black Book" list, printed by convict labour, of over 12,000 habitual criminals with their aliases and descriptions.

[1] Du Cane retired from the army with the honorary rank of major-general on 31 December 1887, and from the civil service on 23 March 1895.

[1] Du Cane died at his residence, 10 Portman Square, London, on 7 June 1903, and was buried in Great Braxted churchyard, Essex.

[1] The manuscript diary of his daughter, Eliza Dorothea, is held at the Cadbury Research Library (University of Birmingham).