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The Galton Institute is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. Its aims are "to promote the public understanding of human heredity and to facilitate informed debate about the ethical issues raised by advances in reproductive technology."

It was founded by Sybil Gotto in 1907 as the Eugenics Education Society, with the aim of promoting the research and understanding of eugenics. Membership came predominately from the professional class and included prominent scientists such as Francis Galton.[1] The Society engaged in research, lobbied Parliament, organized lectures, and produced pamphlets to further their eugenic goals.[1] It became the Eugenics Society in 1926 (often referred to as the British Eugenics Society to distinguish it from others). From 1909–1968 it published The Eugenics Review, a scientific journal. Membership reached its peak during the 1930s.

The Society was based near Brockwell Park, Lambeth in London. It is currently based in Wandsworth, London, and changed its name to the Galton Institute in 1989.

History[edit]

Creation of the Eugenics Education Society[edit]

Sybil Gotto, founder of the Eugenics Education Society (20th century). Image from Wellcome Library.

The Eugenics Education Society (EES) was founded in 1907 at the impetus of 21-year-old Sybil Gotto, a widowed social reformer.[1] Inspired by Francis Galton's work on eugenics, Gotto began looking for supporters to start an organization aimed at educating the public about the benefits of eugenics[1]. She was introduced to the lawyer Montague

Sir Francis Galton, circa 1890s. Honorary President of the Eugenics Education Society (1907-1911).

Crackanthorpe, who would become the second president of the EES[2], by James Slaughter, the Secretary of the Sociological Society.[1] Crackanthorpe introduced Gotto to Galton, the statistician who coined the term "eugenics."[3] Galton would go on to be Honorary President of the Society[1] from 1907 to 1911.[4] Gotto and Crackanthorpe presented their vision before a committee of the Moral Education League, requesting that the League change its name to the Eugenic and Moral Education League, but the committee decided that a new organization should be formed, exclusively devoted to eugenics.[1] The EES was located in Eccleston Square, London.

The goals of Eugenics Education Society were stated in first issue of the Eugenics Review as:[5]

  1. “Persistently to set forth the National Importance of Eugenics in order to modify public opinion, and create a sense of responsibility in the respect of bringing all matters pertaining to human parenthood under the domination of Eugenic ideals.
  2. To spread a knowledge of the Laws of heredity so far as they are surely known, and so far as that knowledge might affect the improvement of the race.
  3. To further Eugenic Teaching at home, in the schools, and elsewhere."

Membership[edit]

The EES did not exist in isolation, but was rather a part of a large network of Victorian reform groups that existed in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century.[1] Members of the Society were also involved in the National Association for the Care and Protection of the Feeble-minded, the Society for Inebrity, the Charity Organisation Society, and the Moral Education League.[1] The British eugenics movement was a predominantly middle-class and professional-class phenomenon.[6] Most members of the EES were educated and prominent in their fields - at one point all members were listed in professional directories.[6] Two-thirds of members were scientists[1], and the 1914 Council of the EES was dominated by professors and physicians.[7] Women constituted a significant portion of the Society’s members, exceeding 50% in 1913[6] and 40% in 1937.[1] While the majority of members came from the professional class, there were also a few members from the clergy and aristocracy, such as Reverend William Inge, the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral[1], and the Earl and Countess of Limerick.[1]

Activities (1907-1939)[edit]

The main activities the Eugenics Education Society engaged in were research, propaganda, and legislative lobbying. Many campaigns were joint efforts with other social reform groups - the EES met with 59 other organizations between 1907 and 1935.[5]  

Shortly after the Society was founded, members protested the closing of London institutions housing alcoholic women.[1] A resolution was drafted proposing the segregation of alcoholics to prevent their reproduction, as the EES believed alcoholism was heritable.[1] This resolution proved unsuccessful in Parliament in 1913.[1]

In 1910, the Society's Committee on Poor Law Reform refuted both the Majority and Minority Reports of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, stating their belief that poverty was rooted in the genetic deficiencies of the working class. This view was published in a Poor Law issue of the Eugenics Review (pg. 72).[1] The Committee suggested that paupers be detained in workhouses, under the authority of the Poor Law Guardians, to prevent their breeding (pg. 73).[1] The same year, E. J. Lidbetter, EES member and former employee of the Poor Law Authority in London, attempted to prove the hereditary nature of poverty by studying the pedigrees of poor families.[1]

The Society underwent considerable growth in its early years. By 1911, the London headquarters was supplemented by branches in Cambridge, "Oxford, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Southampton, Glasgow, and Belfast," as well as abroad in "Australia and New Zealand" (pg. 97). R. A. Fisher was a founding member of the Cambridge University Branch (pg. 97)[1], where Leonard Darwin, Reginald Punnett, and Reverend Inge lectured about the eugenic dangers a fertile working class posed to the educated middle class (pg. 101)[1]

In 1912, President Leonard Darwin assembled a Research Committee to standardize the format and symbols used in pedigree studies. The members of the Committee were Edgar Schuster, Alexander M. Carr-Saunders, E. J. Lidbetter, Dr. Major Greenwood, Sybil Gotto, and A. F. Tredgold. The standardized pedigree they produced was published in the Eugenics Review and later adopted by Charles Davenport's Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor in the United States (pg. 77).[1]

In 1912, a group of physicians from the EES met unsuccessfully with the President of the Local Government Board to advocate for the institutionalization of those infected with venereal disease.[1] The Society’s interest in venereal disease continued during WWI, when the Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases was formed with the inclusion of members of the EES.[1]

In 1916, EES President Leonard Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, published a pamphlet entitled “Quality not Quantity,” encouraging members of the professional class to have more children.[1] Darwin proposed a tax rebate for middle-class families in 1917, but the resolution was not successful in Parliament.[1] In 1919, Darwin stated his belief that fertility was inversely proportional to economic class to the Royal Commission on Income Tax.[1] He feared the falling birth rate of the middle-class would result in a “national danger.”[1]

A Eugenics Society poster (1930s). Image from Wellcome Library.

In the 1920s and 1930s, members of the EES advocated for graded Family Allowances. Wealthier families would be given more funds for having more children, thus incentivizing fertility in the middle and upper classes.[1][7] Statistician and EES member R. A. Fisher argued in 1932 that Family Allowances that only funded the poor were dysgenic, as they did not reward the breeding of individuals the EES viewed as eugenically desirable.[1]

Members of the EES such as Julian Huxley also expressed support for eutelegenesis in the 1930s, a eugenic proposal to artificially inseminate women with the sperm of men deemed mentally and physically superior in an effort to better the race (pg.77).[8]

Activities (1942-1989)[edit]

The Eugenics Society underwent a hiatus during the Second World War and did not reconvene until 1942, under the leadership of secretary Carlos Blacker.[7] In the postwar period, the Society focused primarily marriage and fertility, as well as the shifting racial makeup of the UK.

In 1944, R. C. Wofinden published an article in the Eugenics Review describing the features of "mentally deficient" working-class families and questioning whether mental deficiency led to poverty or vice versa (pg. 46).[8] Blacker argued that poor heredity was the cause of poverty, but other members of the Society, such as Hilda Lewis, disagreed with this view (pg. 47).[8]

Following WWII, British eugenicists concerned by rising divorce rates and falling birth rates attempted to promote marriages between "desirable" individuals while preventing marriages between those deemed eugenically unfit (pg. 44).[8] The British Social Hygiene Council, a group with ties to the Eugenics Society, formed the Marriage Guidance Council, an organization that offered pre-marital counseling to young couples (pg. 45).[8] In 1954, the North Kensington Marriage Welfare Centre published a pamphlet entitled "Eugenic Guidance," which referred couples worried about passing on their "weaknesses" to consultation by the Eugenics Society (pg. 45).[8]

In 1952 Blacker stepped down as secretary of the Eugenics Society to become the administrative chairman of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, or IPPF (pg. 122).[8] The IPPF was sponsored in part by the Eugenics Society and headquartered within the Society's offices in London (pg. 123).[8]

As a result of the British Nationality Act of 1948, which enabled Commonwealth citizens to immigrate to the UK, postwar Britain saw an influx of non-white populations (pg. 98).[8] The Eugenics Society became concerned with changes to the racial makeup of the country, exemplified by its publication of G. C. L. Bertram's 1958 broadsheet on immigration from the West Indies (pg. 98).[8] Bertram claimed that races were biologically distinct due to their evolved adaptations to different environments, and that miscegenation should only be permitted between similar races (pg. 99).[8]

In 1962, Blacker published an article in the Eugenics Review defending voluntary sterilization as humanitarian effort that was beneficial to mothers and the children they already had (pg.124).

The last volume of the Eugenics Review was published in 1968. It was succeeded by the Journal of Biosocial Science.[1] 255 After the 1960s, the Eugenics Society shifted its focus from eugenics in Britain to biosocial issues (fertility and population control) in Third World countries.[4] The Eugenics Society changed its name to the Galton Institute in 1989 - a result of negative public sentiment towards eugenics following WWII.[4]

Acknowledgement of Eugenic Past[edit]

The Galton Institute's website currently states that "the Galton Institute rejects outright the theoretical basis and practice of coercive eugenics, which it regards as having no place in modern life."[9]Furthermore, "the current Galton Institute has disassociated itself completely from any interest in the theory and practice of eugenics, but recognises the importance of the acknowledgement and preservation of its historical records in the interest of improving awareness of the 20th century eugenics movements in the social and political context of the times."[10]

Present-Day Activities (1989- Present )[edit]

Prominent Members[edit]

Presidents of the Society/Institute[edit]


Evaluation of Galton Institute article:

The article's content is relevant to the topic, but it is very underdeveloped. There is only a lead describing the Galton Institute's stated goal with a brief paragraph about its history, and a list of prominent members. The article could be improved with a section that more fully describes the history of the Eugenics Education Society and its transition to becoming the Galton Institute. The claims do not all have citations (there is no citation for the Society's location or the date of the name change). Not all citations are reliable, as the Galton Institute's own website (a primary source) is quoted in the lead. There are also no citations for the list of prominent members.


  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae Mazumdar, Pauline M. H. (1992). Eugenics, human genetics, and human failings : the Eugenics Society, its sources and its critics in Britain. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415044243.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x "Past Presidents – The Galton Institute". Retrieved 2019-10-15.
  3. ^ "The Eugenics Society archive". wellcomelibrary.org. Retrieved 2019-10-04.
  4. ^ a b c Mazumdar, Pauline M. H. (2000). "Essays in the History of Eugenics (review)". Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 74 (1): 180–183. doi:10.1353/bhm.2000.0029. ISSN 1086-3176.
  5. ^ a b Baker, Graham J. (2014-05-01). "Christianity and Eugenics: The Place of Religion in the British Eugenics Education Society and the American Eugenics Society, c.1907–1940". Social History of Medicine. 27 (2): 281–302. doi:10.1093/shm/hku008. ISSN 0951-631X. PMC 4001825. PMID 24778464.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: PMC format (link)
  6. ^ a b c MacKenzie, Donald (1976). "Eugenics in Britain". Social Studies of Science. 6 (3/4): 499–532. ISSN 0306-3127.
  7. ^ a b c Jones, Greta (1996). Social Hygiene in Twentieth Century Britain. Kent, United Kingdom: Croom Helm Ltd. ISBN 0-7099-1481-4.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Hanson, Clare (2013). Eugenics, Literature and Culture in Post-War Britain. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-80698-5.
  9. ^ "Eugenic past – The Galton Institute". Retrieved 2019-10-15.
  10. ^ "About – The Galton Institute". Retrieved 2019-10-17.
  11. ^ "Governance – The Galton Institute". Retrieved 2019-10-15.
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