ABI Origins

The Association of British Investigators - 100 years

The year was 1913 when a retired Scotland Yard detective by the name of Harry Smale laid the first foundation stone of what is the Association of British Investigators we know today. Little would Mr Smale have known that his meeting with a group of other London private detectives, and their decision to form the British Detectives Association would one day become the UK's leading organization to represent professional investigators in the private sector.

The purpose and objectives back in 1913 are quoted as follows:

"To promote and protect the interests of members and their relations with each other and with their employees, to reform abuses, to improve and purify detective methods, to guard against imposition and fraud by such persons as do not meet their obligations, also to seek national and international business in the name of the Association and apportion same amongst it's members. To make it a clean profession by our example and endeavor to purge it of undesirables"

ABI Past Presidents from 1969, click HERE

1952 ABI Deputation to Home Secretary

Wise words from wise men of their day, and objectives that those Association leaders who have followed have worked hard to achieve.

Governing Council 1951		Harry Smale 1913 (ABI founder)	A Galvin 1959
ABI House, 10 Bonner Hill Road, Kingston upon Thames, 1971 - 2001		ABI House, Office Wall Plaque, 1971 - 2001	Albert Miller 1972
1965		Cliff Burgess	Clive Naylor 1974
Frank Martin 1970		Governing Council 1971	GC Wives 1971
1972		1972	1972
Frank Martin, Peter & Iris Heims		1972 Tony Kinghorn, Peter & Iris Heims	Frank Martin & John Showell 1960s
Gerald Kemp 1973		Alan Drake 1975	Colin Finlay 1984
Governing Council 1977		George Rivers 1987	Zena Scott Archer
George Pulley 1988		Colin Dexter OBE, Patron 2017