Walter Dinnie

Walter Dinnie (26 December 1850 – 7 May 1923) was a British and New Zealand police officer, private detective and land board chairman.

Life Brother of the strongman Donald Dinnie, he was born in Aboyne to Robert and Celia Dinnie (née Hay). and the 'Harry the Valet' case of 1898, the latter alongside Frank Froest and Walter Dew. After retirement from that force he was appointed Police Commissioner of New Zealand. 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. 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.

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. He fought back in the press but ultimately the prime minister announced Dinnie's resignation on 22 December 1909. 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. He declined an offer to be Assistant Commissioner of Police in Samoa in 1916. He died in Wellington in 1923 aged 72.