Christiaan Jacobus van Ledden Hulsebosch was a Dutch pharmacist , forensic chemist and researcher. He introduced forensic light sources to police work and thus played a major role in the European and global development of criminalistics .
His father Marius Louis Quirin van Ledden Hulsebosch (1849-1930) was a famous chemist. After schooling in Amsterdam and Tiel in the Netherlands, Christiaan Jacobus van Ledden Hulsebosch studied pharmacy at the University of Amsterdam from 1897 to 1902 .
In December 1902 he received his diploma, was appointed health inspector in The Hague and took over his father's pharmacy Nieuwendijk, which he ran rather half-heartedly. From 1902 to 1910 he studied chemistry, physics and criminology in Lausanne, Berlin, Dresden and Vienna. The pharmacy had been carrying out various forensic research assignments since January 1883, and since 1885 his father has repeatedly been charged for forensic investigations.
In early March 1902, a request for investigations into a sex crime was sent by telegraph from the Alkmaar public prosecutor 's office to his father, who was attending a conference in Brussels at the time; the then 24-year-old student Christiaan Jacobus van Ledden Hulsebosch was able to successfully complete the order and calculate it independently. Thus began his career as a forensic examiner.
His father notably conducted forensic investigations into poisoning and crime involving the use of ink, but he also worked on other clues left by burglars. In the beginning, Christiaan Jacobus van Ledden Hulsebosch was also involved in similar cases - in addition to his work in the pharmacy - but over time he expanded his range of research: He investigated plane crashes, arson and murders of all kinds. For further training he studied on that of Professor Dr. Archibald Rudolph Reiss at the Institut de police scientifique founded at the University of Lausanne.
In 1910, much to his father's chagrin, he gave up all pharmacy activities and devoted himself entirely to "scientific research for industry, individuals and law". In his laboratory, he bought special equipment from abroad or pieces of equipment that he developed for himself. He achieved great fame and was the first to use ultraviolet light in police investigations. In 1914 he founded the first school for scientific police research (the theory of tracks), and his work and teaching soon found recognition. From 1916 until his retirement on July 1, 1950 he was a scientific adviser to the police in Amsterdam and in 1923 he became a lecturer in the law faculty of the University of Amsterdam and taught the "Lectures on the Detection of Offenses". In addition, Van Ledden Hulsebosch was a guest lecturer at the Police Vocational School (MPVS) in Hilversum. In 1929, CJ van Ledden founded Hulsebosch with the Swiss criminalist Marc Bischoff, the French Edmond Locard , the Austrian Siegfried Türkel and the German Georg Popp in Lausannethe Vienna-based Académie Internationale de Criminalistique (International Academy for Criminalistics).
In 1945 his autobiographical book Forty Years of Detective Work was published in Utrecht.
In 1952 he died of a heart attack in his hometown at the age of seventy-five
