author
W. Waithman Caddell
Best known as the co-author of an early 20th-century handbook on spotting forged documents, this elusive writer appears in the historical record mainly through practical, no-nonsense works rather than a well-documented public life.
1 Audiobook
The Detection of Forgery A Practical Handbook for the Use of Bankers, Solicitors, Magistrates' Clerks, and All Handling Suspected Documents
by Douglas Blackburn, W. Waithman Caddell
About the author
W. Waithman Caddell is a little-documented author whose name survives chiefly through The Detection of Forgery (1909), a practical guide written with Douglas Blackburn. Project Gutenberg and library catalog records list him as the book's co-author, and contemporary-style listings identify him as Captain Waithman Caddell.
The book was aimed at bankers, solicitors, magistrates' clerks, and others who handled suspicious documents. It presents handwriting comparison and document examination as working tools for everyday professional use, which suggests Caddell was writing from a practical, administrative, or investigative background rather than from a purely literary one.
Caddell is also credited alongside Blackburn on Secret Service in South Africa, and bookseller descriptions connect him with official work in South Africa during the British occupation. Beyond those attributions, reliable biographical details are scarce, so his reputation today rests mainly on these surviving works and their glimpse into early forensic document analysis.