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Anthropometric Laboratory

The Anthropometric Committee (1875-1883)

When the Belgian Adolphe Quetelet (1796-1874) published his book on Anthropometry in 1870 under the title Anthropométrie, his work was already known in England, and was gradually getting adopted. Quetelet was the first to use human measurements as a means of defining what should be considered ‘normal’ and ‘average man’, already from the 1830s, with his first book on the subject appearing in 1835 under the title Sur l’Homme et le Développment de ses Facultés (‘On Man and the Development of his Faculties’). This was largely based on his study of school children, of which he measured their heights and weights, in an attempt to find a correlation between the two and specifically how both height and weight increased with age (Smith 2019, 7).

Both the founding of the Statistical Section of the British Association (1833) and the Statistical Society of (1834) are attributed to Quetelet’s work, having been also elected as ‘a foreign member of the Statistical Society of London and credited as a founder’ (Smith 2019, 6). His book was also translated in English and published in 1842 (Smith 2019, 7). It was not however until 1875 that the British Association for the Advancement of Science (itself founded in 1831) that it founded an Anthropometric Committee aiming to ‘describe the physical condition of the population of the British Isles, and, to a degree, that of other places and peoples around the world’ (Jordan 2013, 10).

Quetelet’s work was very influential for Charles Roberts, who became one of the most important anthropometrists working with the Anthropometric Committee, which he joined in 1876 (Jordan 2013, 10). Roberts was not only aware of Quetelet’s studies and his books, but he wrote his own anthropometric study in 1878 under the title ‘A Manual of Anthropometry’, crucially perhaps after having failed to attract much attention from the publishing world in his own translation of Anthropométrie, an indication that this kind of study was still not popular in England in the early 1870s. His own anthropometric book appeared to have been almost an exact copy of Quetelet’s book, even down to illustrations, failing to make any additional original contribution to Anthropométrie and justifying this plagiarism as scientific: ‘the measuring process had to be uniform across nations’ (Smith 2019, 11).

Francis Galton was also attracted to the idea of using measurements to conduct ‘large-scale anthropometric investigations in Great Britain’ (Lundgren 2013, 453) and this inevitably brought him in touch with Charles Roberts. He became a member of the Anthropometric Committee which he chaired between 1878 and 1883 when it concluded its work (Smith, 17-19) and worked closely with Roberts during that time, becoming an influential member (Lundgren 2013, 454). Nevertheless, the two of them appear to have

Page | 2 seen anthropometry as a means to interpret completely different issues. For Roberts, it was primarily a way of understanding social problems; of understanding how environmental factors produce signs of deterioration (Smith 2019, 11-12). In one particular study between 1872 and 1873, he concentrated on children working in factories with those in rural areas, concluding that industrialization was essentially responsible for ‘national decline’ (Smith 2019, 12). In other words, it was not heredity responsible for the decline, but rather environmental factors (Smith 2019, 13). Worth noting is also that Roberts, with his knowledge of anthropometric studies, intervened in parliamentary work in at least two occasions: On the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Bill, where he offered his expertise as to the age when girls ‘attained sexual maturity’, but also on the Royal Commission on Secondary Education of 1895, ‘arguing for improved physical recreation in secondary schools’ (Smith 2019, 13).

Galton on the other hand appeared to have wanted to use anthropometrics to prove theories on heredity. He leaves hardly any doubt as to what anthropometry was for. In his 1890 article on ‘Why do we measure Mankind?’ he explicitly describes it as a way of selecting those who exhibit some kind of natural superiority as opposed to those who have ‘natural incapacity’ (Galton 1890, 238). He clearly discussed anthropometry as a possible means for employers to select those capable for the job offered, and as a way of everyone to be able to understand their ‘natural incapacities’, and save them ‘from efforts doomed to be wasted’ (Galton 1865, 333). For Galton, anthropometry is a method of ‘throwing light on hereditary peculiarities’ (Galton 1865, 338).

Despite the fact that the two men were using anthropometrics to prove different theories, this did not prevent them from working together. As well as working on the Anthropometric Survey of the British Association between 1878 and 1883, they also needed each other for the accumulation of enough data to prove their theories. And while Roberts was certainly active in this respect, collecting data for his anthropometric studies (in his study on children for example Roberts measured thousands of them (Smith 2019, 11-13), Galton appears to have been somewhat non-participatory, joining Roberts in theory but not participating in the collection of data, almost exuding an air of superiority as the Committee’s Chairman, which ‘cloathe[d] [him] with an authority that an unknown individual would lack’ (Galton 1908, 213) by considering his position in this study as purely advisory (Galton 1908, 214, and Smith 2019, 19).

The committee produced 6 reports during its years of existence, with the last one being in 1883 (Jordan 2013, 12-16). Galton himself appears to have been appointed in the committee replacing William Farr as Chairman, after the committee’s recommendation, with

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Quetelet also joining by 1871 (Jordan 2013, 13). By the time of the last report produced in 1883, the committee reported that almost 53,000 individuals have been participating in its surveys, which appeared to have been ‘supplementary to that of the National Census’ (Jordan 2013, 13).

A general fear that measurements ‘would be used for conscription’ (Smith 2019, 9) as well as the intimacy that taking these measurements implied (Smith 2019, 10) made it very difficult to make anthropometry attractive to the public. Galton himself noted in the 1890s that the public’s indifference for anything that had to do with science (and in this case, with the idea of making their data available for someone else’s research) could only be reversed by making the scientific study for which the measurements were needed more fun and relevant to their everyday lives (Galton 1890, 236). It was, however, down to the scientist to find fun ways of making this happen. He imagined his reader as wondering: ‘If anybody can show me that all this measuring will be useful to myself, I will undergo it with pleasure; otherwise not’ (Galton 1890, 236). And so he found a way to make the measurement collection fun, by adding an anthropometric laboratory in the 1884 International Health Exhibition, which itself already had an element of a fun fair.

The 1884 International Health Exhibition and Galton’s Anthropometric Laboratory.

The 1884 International Health Exhibition provided for Galton the opportunity to set up an Anthropometric Laboratory for the first time. Taking place in South Kensington between Exhibition Road and Queen Gate, next to the South Kensington Museum, the exhibition was an opportunity for the four million visitors to understand the importance of the ‘science of sanitation’ which ‘affects the welfare of every individual’, while also ‘illustrat[ing] vividly and in a practical a manner as possible Food, Dress, the Dwelling, the School, and the Workshop, as affecting the conditions of healthful life’ (Acland 1884, 5). It is quite ironic then that in an exhibition which took the approach that the environment affects one’s health (with the environment largely being determined by social class), Galton set up an anthropometric laboratory essentially with a view of obtaining data to prove the complete opposite.

To illustrate the importance of healthy surroundings, the exhibition also included ‘sanitary and unsanitary houses’, with the sanitary ones containing the ideal house with proper ventilations and appliances (Acland 1884, 5). Galton’s laboratory was set up on the South Gallery and its annexes, next to the Meteorological Instruments, and advertised in the Exhibition’s booklet as a place where ‘visitors can have their principal physical dimension taken, their hearing power and accuracy of eyesight ascertained, and their strength tested (Acland 1884, 14). Being part of an International Health Exhibition offered Galton not only

Page | 4 the opportunity to attract participants from a large pool of people (visitors), but to also connect anthropometry to the exhibition’s theme, health.

An interesting aspect for further research would be how exhibitors were chosen. This might be quite important when it comes to Galton setting up his laboratory as part of the exhibition. Galton himself admitted in his memoirs, published in 1909 that he ‘offered to equip and maintain a laboratory there [at the exhibition], if suitable place were given, the workshop set up, and the security of it taken off my hands’ (Galton 1909, 245). Given that his cousin, the successful engineer Douglas Galton, was part of the Exhibition’s committee, this raises the issue of whether the laboratory was set up simply because Francis suggested the idea to his cousin Douglas (and so Douglas did his cousin a favour), and not because he was invited by the committee to participate, if indeed the other participants were invited. If this was the case, then there are a few patterns emerging that might need to be discussed separately. The first is that of Galton having others taking care of the details of his proposed research (‘security taken off my hands’, ‘suitable place is given’, ‘workshop set up’), just like it happened with the anthropometric surveys mentioned above, where Roberts was collecting data and Galton simply advising. A further pattern is that of Galton asking to be considered (for an exhibition, for the set up of a laboratory in a university) when he would have possibly remained ignored otherwise.

The location of the laboratory was in fact very strategic: Situated right at the start of the Exhibition and next to its Main (‘Principal’) Entrance, visitors had the opportunity to see the laboratory before they have even had a chance to explore the Exhibition. Happily for Galton, the official Exhibition Guide was very explicit that ‘the best method of visiting the buildings is to commence at the Main Entrances in the Exhibition Road, and walk through the South Gallery with its dependent buildings’ (Acland 1884, 11), the South Gallery of course being where his laboratory was based. Even more fortunate perhaps was the coincidence that his laboratory was right opposite the dinning rooms, which provided food and refreshments for the 4 million visitors that attended the exhibition (Acland 1884, 13). This last point is of particular importance when it comes to evaluating the laboratory’s success at the exhibition. We know both from photographs but also from the description of the laboratory that was set up, that its ‘long narrow enclosure with trellis-work […] gave a quasi-privacy, while enable[ing] outsiders to see a little of what was going on inside’ (Galton 1908, 245). Its location and structure therefore ensured that those visiting the dining rooms right opposite, would get curious about that room with the trellis wall right opposite and would want to know what it is for. It will also be interesting to research further the structure of the other exhibiting rooms and whether Galton’s lattice-work was striking – this alone would

Page | 5 have been enough to make it stand out from the rest and arouse visitors’ curiosity, if it was in a context where other rooms were constructed differently.

The Exhibition as a Fair and its importance for Galton’s Anthropometric Laboratory

In his book on the historical origins of psychological research, Kurt Danziger discusses Galton’s Anthropometric Laboratory in the 1884 Health Exhibition in relation to psychological experimentations that were emerging at the time. In particular, while discussing the different models of psychological experiment and their social structures, he notes Galton’s anthropometric measurements as placing the investigator (Galton) in a place of sharing the knowledge he gains from his subjects (participants), as opposed to clinical experiments where there was a sharp division between the expert conducting the experiments and the subjects (Danziger 1990, 49-54). Galton’s Anthropometric Laboratory is discussed in this study as an example of one of the earliest psychological investigation models that appeared towards the end of the nineteenth century (Danziger 1990, 54).

Danziger also places Galton’s investigations in the context of phrenology, which was offering ‘individuals the service of informing them about their ‘mental faculties’ on the basis of measurements performed upon them’ (Danziger 1990, 55), and assumes that the laboratory’s success in measuring people indicates their familiarity with this kind of process (Danziger 1990, 55). In fact, as I have discussed above, familiarity was far from the reason why the laboratory succeeded. Anthropometric surveys were very difficult to conduct, exactly because of the level of intimacy they implied, and it was exactly this point that the laboratory in an International Health Exhibition was going to correct: Wider participation on something that was not popular at the time. Attendance does not really point towards familiarity but in this case more towards popularity based on curiosity, given the structure and the location of the laboratory, and equally participants were not really ‘interested in their [anthropometric] plans for individual advancement’ (Danziger 1990, 56), but were more curious to see what was going on behind the trellis wall. If anything, the only one interested in this study was Galton and not the public. Through this kind of studies he was proposing the idea of using anthropometry for employment: a pool of data that would enable employers to find the right people for the job (i.e. weed out those not able to do it) and not for job applicants to understand what kind of jobs they would ideally want to apply for, based on their anthropometric charts, as Danziger mentions (Danziger 1990, 56). It was a means to discriminate, and not to aid participants.

Danziger’s views on the laboratory’s popularity underline the significance of placing it (and indeed anything on ) in its actual context and discussing it as part of it, rather

Page | 6 than examining it as something extraordinarily popular that happened in isolation. It is only when we place the laboratory in the context of the exhibition; when we understand where it was placed on site as well as what its location meant for attendance; how it was constructed and how this enabled Galton to attract more participants, that we are able to start questioning its popularity and getting a real understanding of what it was. Equally, when the laboratory is placed in the context of the Anthropometric Surveys that were very difficult to conduct, then its existence in the exhibition becomes more like a vehicle for Galton to achieve the acquisition of a large pool of data that he was unable to gather exactly because of the unpopularity of anthropometric surveys, and not a continuation of a successful anthropometric science. Phrenology and familiarity with its measurements, was not just the only context of the laboratory but there was already a long tradition of Quetelet’s anthropometric studies behind it (indeed popular in England since the 1830s) which were in fact the real inspiration of Galton’s anthropometry, something that Danziger appears to ignore completely when discussing the Laboratory.

This was part of ‘the beginning of an era of public enrolment, involvement and participation’, when ‘the relationship between the social sciences and specific audiences was particularly important in establishing authority of knowledge of public matters’ (Lundgren 2013, 448).

So what exactly was taking place behind the trellis wall? The 9,337 visitors of the laboratory during the Exhibition had the opportunity to have some 1of their abilities measured. This included: ‘Keenness of Sight; Colour-Sense; Breathing Power; strength of Pull and Squeeze; Swiftness of Blow; Span of Arms, Height, standing and sitting; and Weight’ (Galton 1884, 181). The measurements were achieved with the aid of instruments developed by Galton and records of the results were entered in a card given to the participant, while a second, duplicate copy was kept ‘for statistical purposes, at a total cost of 3d’ (Galton 1884, 181). Much could be said about that 3d which Galton (from his privileged background) was convinced is a ‘small admission fee’ (Galton 1885a, 206). Common labourers were earning 3s. 9d. in the mid 1860s for working six days a week from 10 hours each day.1

Writing on the 1884 Laboratory, Galton put its objects as ‘to show to the public the simplicity of the instrument and methods by which the chief physical characteristics of man

1 Details of wages found at http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/wages2.html, accessed 22 July 2019

Page | 7 may be measured and recorded’ (Galton 1885a, 205). Around 90 participants were measured daily in the 36ft by 6ft laboratory, which contained also a table with the instruments needed (Galton 1885, 206), most of which were designed by Galton (Galton 1885a, 218). The laboratory appears to have been also some kind of ‘testing ground’ for the instruments as well, (and which he described in more detail in his article ‘On the Anthropometric Laboratory’ in 1885) (Lundgren 2013, 454), with Galton observing their performance and modifying them accordingly to suit his studies (Galton 1892, 33-34, and Galton 1909, 249).

The process of measuring was very simple. Participants (or ‘applicants’ as Galton called them) would go through the door, pay the 3d, and fill in a form in a part of the laboratory that offered a bit of privacy. Then, the tests would take place. While Galton provided privacy for the completion of the initial forms, he did not do so for the actual measurements. This further reinforces of a performance during the measurements (Danziger 1990, 56), and indeed a fun performance, creating the ‘amusement of seeing the process’ (Galton 1890, 236). The process of course could also be just about seen from the other side of the trellis wall and generate more participants. In fact this was designed to be a performance in front of a second performer: Galton apparently found it more efficient in terms of time to have two attendees at the same time, but also noted that it was easier to ‘keep parents and their children apart’, as ‘the old did not like to be outdone by the young, and insisted on repeated trials’ (Galton 1885a, 206). The Press definitely agreed with the element of fun: Reporting on the laboratory in October that year, a column announced that all that measuring ‘caused great fun’ (Penelope 1884), but also as a place where ‘a large mass of facts will be collected’ (Anon, 1884). To reinforce even further the element of fun, charts were put on display, deliberately so everyone could see how they fair compared to other participants (Galton 1890, 236 and Lundgren 2013, 455). Once the data was collected, a card with the results was given to the participant, while a duplicate was kept by Galton (Galton 1909, 245).

Right after the end of the 1884 Exhibition, Galton felt that it was ‘a pity that the Laboratory should also come to an end’ and approached the South Kensington Museum to propose an anthropometric laboratory based there (Memoirs, 249). This was accepted, and for the next six years, he managed to collect more ‘useful data’ (Galton 1909, 249), ‘familiarising the public with the method of anthropometry’ (Galton 1892, 32), measuring approximately a further 3,678 (Galton 1892, 32), though as he admitted, some of them were measured more than once (Galton 1892, 32). At the same time, a further 3 anthropometric laboratories were also set up: At Eton College, at Cambridge University, and a third at Trinity College, Dublin (Forrest 1986, 1384).

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Not much is known about the laboratory at Eton, while some information survives for the other two, where Galton was at least to a degree involved. The Cambridge laboratory opened possibly in 1885, the same year that Galton was appointed a Rede Lecturer at Cambridge. As he was interested in ‘the nature, principles and objects of the quantitative estimate of some of the less commonly, and less easily, measured of the human faculties’, he presented the university with the appropriate instruments (Venn 1889, 140-1). In fact, it looks like Galton was looking for the same location specifics as he had for the 1884 Exhibition: The laboratory had to be housed in a room that ‘should bring the subject prominently under the notice of the students’ as otherwise ‘not very extensive results could be hoped for’ (Venn 1889, 141). Space was given at the ‘centre of the new museums and lecture rooms’ which was essentially ‘the library of the Philosophical Society’, with the librarian being the one taking the measures (Venn 1889, 141).

The Dublin laboratory was set up by Daniel Cunningham, and anthropologist, and Alfred Haddon, an anatomist, with Galton providing ‘the greatest encouragement and the fullest assistance’ (Cunningham and Haddon 1892, 35). The laboratory was housed at the Comparative Anatomy museum, but the University also asked for it to be used as a ‘small Anthropological Department’ (Cunningham and Haddon 1892, 37). It is not clear whether the instruments for the laboratory were also bought from Galton (Cunningham and Haddon 1892, 36-37), but Forrest seems to imply that some of the instruments were purchased by Galton while others were sourced from elsewhere (Forrest 1986, 1384). Forrest also implies that the Dublin laboratory also had a mobile version, thought he does not provide any further details (Forrest 1986, 1384). As was the case with the Cambridge one, it too failed to succeed. Having been set up in universities, both the Dublin and Cambridge laboratories drew measurements from the student communities. In Dublin there was apparently a strong interest from Medical students (Forrest 1986, 1384) while in Cambridge it was noted that the majority of those wishing to be measured were from the ‘upper professional and gentle classes’, as it happened in all universities (Venn 1889, 143).

But just what exactly were those laboratories trying to achieve with all the measurements they were accumulating? Galton himself makes clear that his anthropometric studies had racial undertones, and this becomes obvious in a number of his articles during the 1880s. ‘The chief object [of the measurements], as it seems to me, is to define the individual or the race, and to show in what way, and to what extent, he or it [race] differs from others’ , with the ‘watch of the development during the watch period’ coming second (Galton 1997, 3). In the1884 Health Exhibition Guide he explains that anthropometric records are for statistical use, to ‘enable us to compare schools, occupations, residences, races &c’ (Galton 1884, 182), and elaborates further to explain that ‘the British nation is

Page | 9 partly blend as partly a mosaic of very distinct types’, with ‘the short, black-haired ancient British race unit[ing] imperfectly with the tall fair-haired Danish or Scandinavian’ (Galton 1884). The two apparently do not mix: ‘Their union resembles what druggists call an emulsion, that is, a mixture of oil and water, so well shaken together that they from an apparently homogenous substance; but the combination is not durable […] types are stable, but the forms of their mongrel offspring are not’ (Galton 1884).

In his ‘inquiries into Human Faculty and Development’ (1883), he makes it even more clear that anthropometric data is for the use of eugenics: After arguing about the importance of keeping family registers, he makes clear that ‘the investigation of human eugenics – that is, of the conditions under which men of a high type are produced – is at present extremely hampered by the want of full family histories, both medical and general’ (Galton 1883, 44). His strong belief that eugenics was about to become a very important science, convinced him that ‘no time ought to be lost in encouraging and directing a habit of compiling personal and family histories’ (Galton 1883, 45). For Galton, races differ and ‘have distinct instincts and faculties’ equal to those of ‘animals in different cages of the Zoological Gardens’ (Galton 1883, 2). ‘The moral and intellectual wealth of a nation largely consists in the multifarious variety of the gifts of the men who compose it’, with some having ‘little or no value, or are positively harmful’ which justifies some sort of ‘improvement’ (Galton 1883, 3). The book, written in 1883 just a year before his first anthropometric laboratory was set up, contains essentially a description of the types of measurements that he would eventually be doing at his laboratories, as well as a justification of why they were significance (i.e. for eugenics purposes). For Galton, ‘the faculties of men generally, are unequal to the requirements of a high and growing civilization’ (Galton 1883, 331), with the ‘very foundation and outcome of the human mind [being] dependent on race’ (Galton 1883, 332).

The lack of success of all anthropometric laboratories that followed the 1884 exhibition implies that the 1884 laboratory was successful only because it was part of a much larger and popular event, and it failed to generate any interest in anthropometry like Galton was hoping. It also looks like Galton was aware of this (the laboratory’s success depending on the Exhibition): He was hoping for a prominent position for the Cambridge laboratory to ensure students are aware anthropometric study is happening; the Dublin laboratory too has been cited as not being able to emulate the 1884 success exactly because it was ‘lacking an occasion such as the International Exhibition’ (Forrest 1986, 1384). In all laboratories Galton was involved to an extent, so these were not ventures set up by others, spurred by the success of the 1884 laboratory. The 1884 laboratory success therefore was relative: It failed to make anthropometric measurements popular.

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Publications related to Anthropometry.

As well as the laboratory, Galton also prepared a publication to enable people to take measurements in their home. Two publications came out in 1884, under the titles ‘Life History Album’ and ‘Record of Family Faculties’ (Smith 2019, 21). The idea of publications where the public could keep records of their measurements however was not new: Charles Roberts was the first to include a chart in his ‘Manual of Anthropometry’ from 1878 to encourage people to ‘monitor their physical changes over multiple years’ (Smith 2019, 14). This was not intended for families, but more for professionals (‘physicians, military recruiters and schoolmasters’) with approximately 61 measurements being required to fill in the graph provided in the book (Smith 2019, 14-15). The book however was not successful, and the planned, more substantial publication that Roberts had in mind (‘Physical Development and Proportions of the Human Body’) apparently never appeared (Smith 2019, 16). What is even more important for anthropometry perhaps, is what Smith describes as ‘a sense of isolation in trying to normalize anthropometric surveying’ which she claims is evident form his letters to the medical press (Smith 2019, 16).

Galton’s own publications, which apparently were ‘the brainchild of the British Medical Association’s ‘Collective Investigation Committee’’ (Smith 2019, 21) were designed for the public and not professionals, to enable families to create their own family history through measurements. This was particularly the case for the ‘Life History Album’, which was to be completed year-by-year. The main difference between his two publications however, was that the ‘Life History Album’ was more designed to record biological details of the family, while the ‘Record of Human Faculties’ aimed to record ‘the natural gifts inherited from […] ancestry’. Both however, were to be sent back to Galton, as a means of him acquiring more data for his research. In fact, the ‘Record of Family Faculties’ also states that Galton was offering £500 in prizes for those who were diligent and completed the entire booklet, sending it back to Galton – the equivalent of £33,093 in today’s money. Smith mentions that Galton even used bribes in order to get what he wanted (Smith 2019, 4).

The medical profession was not too convinced about the use of these publications. Thomas Michael Dolan, a Medic who won the Fothergill Gold Medal of the Medical Society of London in 1882 for his study on the whooping-cough, thought that these were a waste of money and ‘an over-elaboration’ particularly for those like him who have 5 children (Dolan, 1884). The Life Album was ‘too impractical’ as it was ‘too minute’, and it was hoped that the committee would spend money elsewhere, despite the fact that Galton showed complete disregard for it, yet again. The resistance of the medical profession to anthropometry was

Page | 11 further evident in 1889, when an article on the ‘British Medical Journal’, discussing one of Galton’s addresses to the Royal Anthropological Institute (of which he was a president between 1885 and 1888), the author is almost derogatory when discussing Galton’s conclusions about ‘tall men have long arms and large feet, and short men short arms and small feet’ which ‘does not strike us as a new and important discovery’ (anon., 1889). There were, apparently no obvious practical applications of anthropometry, with Galton’s language being described as ‘obscure’ when discussing his findings. His instruments were indeed impressive, but only to be looked as ‘chemists’s unexplored bottles put away on shelves to be taken down some day and turned to some practical but wholly unexpected use’. John Beddoe who took over from Galton, certainly had a more appropriate standing for the job: […] the society has a President who possesses a practical acquaintance with the anatomy and physiology of the human body […] his work is likely to be more practical and intelligible to the majority of his professional brethren’ (Anon, 1889).

Conclusions.

Concluding this preliminary study on anthropometry, a few points are worth reiterating. First, that it is almost beyond doubt that the 1884 laboratory’s success depended heavily on its surroundings, the International Health Exhibition. It is not accidental that the remaining 4 laboratories that followed failed to make any lasting impression, and additionally failed to aid Galton in gathering enough data for his study. This of course further raises the issue of acceptance of this type of study – of using anthropometry to prove eugenic theories. Even more, there seems to be a resistance from professionals (particularly from those of the medical profession) when it comes to anthropometry and its uses, which possibly prevented it from developing further. There is also no doubt that Galton wanted the laboratories to succeed purely for his own data acquisition, and not for the public’s good. This is further reinforced, as Smith rightly points out, by the fact that he first published his analysis form the gathered data in 1885, ‘scarcely realizing […] the actual argument of self-knowledge’ (Smith 2019, 20).

In all this, it is also worth noting the very interesting patterns that emerge in Galton’s work, and which can possibly tell as a lot about him as a scientist and his motives. His reluctance to do the ‘hard work’ to realise his scientific goals, which was noted both in the 1884 laboratory, as well as in the anthropometric surveys (where Roberts was expected to do the work and Galton saw himself as an advisor) and his 1904 approach of the for the Eugenics Records Office that came later. His insistence on being included where he possibly would have been ignored is also worth noting as this might also imply the

Page | 12 kind of success his science had: he approached the 1884 committee to set up the laboratory – he was not approached by the committee and asked to do so; he approached the Science Museum to set up the second laboratory – the Museum did not approach him, despite the ‘success’ a year earlier with the first laboratory; he approached the University of London to set up a Eugenics Office – the University did not ask him if he wished to set up a laboratory on its premises. This raises questions as to how successful his anthropometric science was, and further questions whether the narratives of examining the 1884 laboratory in complete isolation actually produces a different impression.

Money appears to be used quite often as a means of luring participants or other partners in his ventures (or rather, on what he wants other people to do for him, so he can take the credit) and is certainly used in abundance. This was the case with the second laboratory he set up in South Kensington, where the participants would get a ‘discount’ if they had already ‘been on the register’, implying those who had already paid the 3d to have their measures taken in the past. A quite substantial prize of £500 was available for those who bothered to complete as detailed as possible his ‘Record of Family Faculties’. Later in 1904, the University of London did not have to find money to set up the laboratory, as this was made available by him: In this case too, someone else (the committee set up to approve the scheme, and Karl Pearson) were also available to do the work of setting up, while he was credited. His two anthropometric publication/charts were a copy of those produced by Roberts a few years before him, with Smith also implying that he had very little input, if we take her description of them being ‘the brainchild’ of someone else.

To sum up, the contextualization of Galton’s work produces a much more disturbing portrayal of his work, something that was also noted for Person’s work when discussing the Galton Laboratory in my previous report submitted to the committee

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Bibliography

- Aclan, Henry W. 1884. The Health Exhibition Literature, Vol. XIX. London: The Executive Council of the International Health Exhibition and the Council of the Society of Arts by William Clowes. - Anon. 1884. ‘Local and General.’ Leeds Mercury, 31 May. - ______. 1889. ‘Anthropology and Anthropometry.’ British Medical Journal 1, no. 1467 (9 February): 314-315. - Cunningham, Daniel John and Haddon, Alfred Cort. 1892. ‘The Anthropometric Laboratory of Ireland.’ The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 21: 35-39. - Danziger, Kurt. 1990. Constructing the Subject: Historical Origins of Psychological Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - Dolan, Thomas M and Sturges, Octavius. 1889. ‘Collective Investigation.’ British Medical Journal, 2, no. 1248 (29 November): 1096-1097. - Forrest, Derek W. 1986. ‘The Anthropometric Laboratory of Ireland.’ American Psychologist 41, no. 12 (December): 1384-1385. - Galton, Francis. 1882. ‘The Anthropometric Laboratory.’ Fortnightly Review 31, no. 183 (March): 332-338. - ______. 1883. Inquiries into Human Faculty and Development. New York: MacMillan. - ______. 1884a. ‘The Anthropometric Laboratory arranged by Francis Galton F.R.S.’ In The Health Exhibition Literature, Vol. XIX, edited by Henry W Aclan, 181-191. London: The Executive Council of the International Health Exhibition and the Council of the Society of Arts by William Clowes. - ______. 1884b. Record of Family Faculties. London: MacMillan. - ______. 1884c. Life History Album. London: MacMillan. - ______. 1885a. ‘On the Anthropometric Laboratory at the Late International Health Exhibition.’ The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 14: 205-221. - ______. 1885b. ‘Some Results of the Anthropometric Laboratory.’ The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 14: 275-287. - ______. 1887. ‘On Recent Designs for Anthropometric Instruments.’ The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 16: 2-9. - ______. 1890. ‘Why do we measure Mankind?’ Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine 45: 236-241.

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- ______. 1892. ‘Retrospect of Work Done at my Anthropometric Laboratory at South Kensington.’ The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 21: 32-35. - ______. 1909. Memories of My Life. New York: Dutton. - Jordan, Thomas E. 2013. Studies in the Quality of Life in Victorian Britain and Ireland. Dordrecht: Springer. - Lundgren, Frans. 2013. ‘The Politics of Participation: Francis Galton’s Anthropometric Laboratory and the making of civic selves.’ British Society for the History of Science 46, no. 3 (September): 445-466. - Penelope. 1884. ‘Our ladies’ column.’ Preston Chronicle and Lancashire Advertiser, 18 October. - Smith, Elise. 2019. ‘Why do we measure mankind?’ Marketing Anthropometry in Late-Victorian Britain.’ History of Science https://doi.org/10.1177/0073275319842977 - Venn, John. 1889. ‘Cambridge Anthropometry.’ The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 18, 140-154.

LONDON’S GLOBAL UNIVERSITY

Job Description

Research Fellow Grade: 7

Department: The Commission of Inquiry Location: London into the History of Eugenics at UCL

Reports to: Professor Iyiola Solanke on Main purpose of the job behalf of UCL

The Commission now seeks to appoint a researcher with a knowledge of archiving and with a degree in the BACKGROUND INFORMATION historical and social sciences to assist it with its work. The post holder will be required to catalogue all UCL The Commission of Inquiry into the History of Eugenics owned materials, documents, artefacts, building names at UCL will look at UCL’s historical role in, and the and funds associated with a number of eugenicists, who current status of, the teaching and study of the history of were associated with UCL, and to provide a historical account on these items. The account should be themed eugenics as well as the current status of UCL’s benefit in order to enable the Commission to further examine from any financial instruments linked to the study of specific items easily. The post holder will also be eugenics. required to produce an evidence based report on the possible modern-day societal impact that UCL’s The Commission held its first meeting on Friday 23rd historical association with eugenics and may have on the current modern institution. November and is due to complete by the end of July

2019. It will provide recommendations as to what UCL’s current position should be on the teaching, Duties and responsibilities: dissemination and study of eugenics, as well as its links to modern day . 1. Produce a catalogue of all UCL owned materials, The report will also deliver recommendations on how to documents, artefacts, building names and funds manage UCL’s current naming of spaces and buildings associated with known eugenicists in the form of a after prominent eugenicists – such as the Victorian finding aid. scientist Francis Galton who coined the term eugenics 2. Produce a historical account of the items identified and endowed UCL with his personal collection and in Point 1 above, with the account divided into archive, along with a bequest which funded the country’s logical and appropriate themes such that the first professorial Chair of Eugenics. Commission is able to locate and further examine specific items of interest. The Commission is being led by Professor Iyiola 3. Produce a report on the historical significance of a Solanke. Professor Solanke is a Professor in the School number of prominent eugenicists that have had, or of Law at the where she holds the still have, an association with UCL.b Chair in EU Law and Social Justice. Her research 4. Produce an evidence based report on the impact focuses on discrimination law and EU Law. that UCL’s association with the items identified in

Point 1 may have on its current staff and student body, with specific reference to Point 3 above.

Person specification

Criteria Essential or Desirable Qualifications, experience and knowledge

A minimum of a PhD in the historical or social sciences E

Skills and abilities

Locating and authenticating historical sources, report writing on historical themes in a style E suitable for lay audiences, reading and interpreting financial documents, analysing data sources objectively, drawing validated conclusions from a variety of historical sources.

Knowledge and Experience

Demonstrable experience of working with historical sources to draw validated conclusions, E experience of writing for peer and lay audiences, the ability to explain complex points accurately, experience of interpreting financial instruments

Knowledge of one of more of the modern sciences upon which prominent eugenicists D have had a significant influence (e.g., statistics, forensics, medicine, genetics)

Personal attributes

Ability to work both independently and as part of a group, to strict deadlines, and clearly E communicate scientific findings. Apply

To apply for this position visit:

ucl.ac.uk/jobs

Special Collections Rare Books Club 9 July 2019 The Galton Laboratory

Anthropometry. GALTON LABORATORY/4/1 and PEARSON/8/23/3 Photograph of the Anthropometric Laboratory, South Kensington, at the International Health Exhibition (1884) Photographs of the Anthropometric Laboratory in South Kensington (Early 20th Century) (Not digitised or available online)

Biometry. PEARSON/5/2/1/1 Weldon’s Plymouth Crab Experiments (1897) (Not digitized or available online)

Pearson as a Feminist? GALTON/2/4/12/1/6 Letter from Alice Lee to Francis Galton regarding Ethel Elderton’s acceptance of the position of Secretary (29 June 1905) Digitised: See Separate Attachment. The Series can be found at https://wellcomelibrary.org/item/b20609176#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&z=- 0.1551%2C0%2C1.3102%2C0.8219

The Galton Laboratory. GALTON/3/3/16/9 Draft of the Francis Galton Laboratory for the Study of National Eugenics (1906) Digitised at:

AR 181, Item 6 Galton’s Bequest (1914) (Not digitised or available online)

COLLEGE COLLECTION BC 15 Appeal for funds to build the Francis Galton Laboratory for the Study of National Eugenics (1911) (Not digitised or available online)

Debates. PEARSON/3/6/10/2 Proof copy of Pearson’s ‘On the Principle of Homotyposis and its relation to Heredity’ (1901) Not digitised. Available online

PEARSON/3/15/6/3 Pearson’s and Elderton’s ‘A Second Study of the Influence of Parental Alcoholism on the Physique and Ability of the Offspring’ (1910) Digitised at: https://archive.org/details/secondstudyofinf00pear

PEARSON/3/15/6/6

Mary Sturge and Victor Horsley, ‘On Some of the Biological and Statistical Errors in the Work on Parental Alcoholism by Miss Elderton and Professor Karl Pearson, F. R. S.’, published in The British Medical Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2611 (Jan. 14, 1911), pp. 72-82. See separate PDF attachment.

Publications. PEARSON/7/1/4 Papers relating to the publication of the earliest volumes of Biometrika: subscriptions (1901) (Not digitised or available online)

GALTON LABORATORY/3/3 Galton Laboratory Publications – Eugenics Laboratory Series, No. 1 (1911) Karl Pearson, ‘The Scope and Importance to the State of the Science of National Eugenics’ Digitised at https://archive.org/details/scopeimportancet03pear

Galton Laboratory Publications – Eugenics Laboratory Series, No. 2 (1909) Karl Person, ‘The Groundwork of Eugenics’ Digitised at https://archive.org/details/groundworkofeuge1909pear

Wider context. GALTON/2/13/1/8 Newspaper Cuttings relating to the Eugenics Education Society: ‘Eugenics and Poor Law: Eliminating the Feeble Minded’ (1910) See attached image. All of the press cuttings can be found digitised as https://wellcomelibrary.org/item/b20635369#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=69&z=- 0.5106%2C0%2C2.0212%2C1.2679

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Rare Books Club The Galton Laboratory (9 July 2019)1

The event was organized as a test of public engagement with eugenics- related/controversial material, and especially as a way of challenging perceptions about what the Galton Laboratory was. My aim was to find a way of telling the story without engaging in the polarizing rhetoric of ‘Good UCL/Bad UCL’ that normally appear as part of ‘the role of eugenics in the history of UCL’ debates, and equally avoiding a selection of material that would demonstrate I am endorsing one side or the other. Having been present in oversimplified conversations on the matter, f

I put a lot of effort in selecting the right title for the event and was quite troubled by ‘how I should present it’. Initially I considered titles such as ‘The Galton Laboratory: Was it as successful as we think it was?’ but became convinced that such a title would probably indicate that the organizer of the event clearly thought the answer is ‘No’. Gradually, it became clear that I was not really telling ‘the other side of the story’, but the actual story. This was going to be the Galton Laboratory in its context, as it should be presented; how it started; how it developed; other eugenics-related organisations that developed around it to demonstrate that there was a wider context of eugenics in British society, but also internationally. For this reason, the simple title of ‘The Galton Laboratory’ was chosen.

Selecting the material.

My aim when selecting material was to take a contextualized approach, and select material that will help not in just describing what the Galton Laboratory was as part of UCL, but also where its origins were, how it started, what were the debates around it, and how it fits in the wider society of its time. I chose the material to create themes around the Galton Laboratory to illustrate its history (from the beginning to 1913) and which included Anthropometry, Biometry, Pearson as a feminist/Eugenics Records Office, The Galton Laboratory, Publications, and Debates. The idea was to take the audience through a step-

1 I am grateful to the following members of Special Collections for their incredibly valuable help: , for suggesting my participation in this event and giving me her free Rare Books Club date; s and , for their help in ordering the material.

Page | 2 by-step historical narrative on the Laboratory, using the selected items to illustrate my points. The items were then displayed in the order of the selected themes.

I deliberately avoided material simply because it looked nice – part of the Galton Laboratory Archive for example contains a series of artworks and appears on our catalogue as containing artwork, maps, watercolours, photographs and AV material (GALTON LABORATORY/4). The watercolours were essentially on medical conditions in animals and humans, and as such I did not think will add anything to the Galton Laboratory story, and I additionally wanted to avoid any connections with the Galton Laboratory as an ‘art- generating’ laboratory: the illustrations were created out of the need to depict various medical conditions, rather than any artistic motives. Similarly, AV material related to much later events in the 1980s and 1990s (a symposium to celebrate Lionel Penrose).

Anthropometry.

Of interest of course were the photographs – there are two copies of the iconic photograph from the 1884 Health Exhibition of the Laboratory that Galton set up there, and I thought this could be the starting point of the Galton Laboratory story. Additional photos from the Laboratory (albeit the second anthropometric laboratory set up by Galton at the Science Museum in South Kensington after the 1884 Exhibition) were identified as part of Pearson’s Archive (PEARSON/8/23/3). These items were chosen to make a point about the ’success’ of the laboratory and how relative it really is: This was a laboratory set up in an exhibition where Galton’s cousin, Francis, was involved in the committee; its location was right by the Main Entrance of the Exhibition; it was located opposite the dining rooms where inevitably a lot of exhibition attendees would have refreshments. Its success was discussed also in the failure of the other four anthropometric laboratories to succeed: Galton’s laboratory in South Kensington (set up after the end of the 1884 exhibition and lasting 6 years), and laboratories in Dublin, Cambridge and Eton, in all of which Galton was involved. The Laboratory also enabled me in discussing the pattern of Galton approaching institutions to set up laboratories (rather than institutions inviting Galton to set up laboratories because he was so successful) but also the idea of him allocating the work to others (set up the laboratory in the Exhibition; do all the work for the Anthropometric committee from 1875 to 1883) while he is taking the credit. I believe this can possibly say a lot about Galton as a person, and it helps in connecting ‘the man and his science’ that appear to have been separated and studied independently.

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Biometry.

Next item to be selected was one of Weldon’s notebooks on the Plymouth Experiments (PEARSON/5/2/2/1/5). Weldon’s material was selected as a means of demonstrating the beginnings of Biometry. Weldon was the first to use Pearson’s statistical methods as a means of proving evolutionary theories, and I felt this item’s significance was twofold: the notebook demonstrated how statistical methods were first used to prove evolutionary theories, but at the same time was a good starting point about the debates that followed with the Royal Society on Weldon’s new methods. In particular, I wanted to discuss the idea of Weldon’s new methods being initially accepted and resulted in him being elected at the Royal Society, but to also discuss how gradually his work, along with that of Pearson’s increasingly attracted criticism. With the Plymouth experiment I wanted to start the conversation of what the critics had to say about the scientific methods used, and how Weldon based his research on the unfounded assumption about the crustaceans’ carapace size relating to their age. I wanted this item to set the tone for the following ones – essentially to demonstrate that there were serious scientific reservations about Weldon’s and Pearson’s work right from the start, but they have somehow disappeared in the historiography of the Galton Laboratory and eugenics in general.

Eugenics Records Office/Pearson as a Feminist?

The next item (GALTON/2/4/12/1/6) took us to the beginnings of the Eugenics Records Office in 1904, which was essentially the precursor of the Galton Laboratory. As was the case with Weldon’s notebook, the significance of this item again was twofold. This is a letter from Alice Lee to Francis Galton reporting Ethel Elderton’s acceptance of the position of secretary (dated 29 June 1905). This could start the discussion of what the Eugenics Records Office was and how it was set up, but also to discuss the idea of Pearson as a Feminist. The second point was done by discussing essentially how the idea of removing the laboratory out of its context can lead to misinterpretation. Can we really claim Pearson broke barriers in science if we don’t really study if this was a standard practice in other laboratories? As it happened, one of the items displayed a bit further down on the tables was in Galton’s Bequest, which also demonstrated salaries, with Ethel Elderton earning just £48 and Edgar Schuster £175 in 1905. I encouraged the audience to have a closer look at the bequest and ask themselves the same question, while also talking about Beatrice Cave, who was effectively made redundant by Pearson when her plans to join another laboratory fell apart. How much of a feminist is someone who ensures a woman is made redundant, and effectively ensuring she will never work in a scientific laboratory again?

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The Galton Laboratory.

The next item chosen was Pearson’s 1906 draft for The Francis Galton Laboratory for the Study of National Eugenics (GALTON/3/3/16/9). This was chosen to demonstrate the beginning of the Galton Laboratory, but to also demonstrate the fact that Pearson took advantage of the end of the Eugenics Records Office (which came with Edgar Schuster’s resignation/end of fellowship) not to create a continuation of the Eugenics Records Office as he could have done, but to suggest a new title to include Galton’s name in a national activity on eugenics. I made a point how this can be interpreted as a clear attempt to ensure money was given by Galton for this endeavor by connecting Galton’s name to a laboratory of national significance, and encouraged the audience to think about Pearson’s significance in the laboratory as essentially its founder, diverting in this way from the usual obsession that audiences appear to have with Galton when it comes to discussions on eugenics. This was also put in the context of Pearson’s money problems just before the founding of the laboratory, as well as his unsuccessful attempts to get a better position and his unhappiness of teaching mathematics at UCL.

Galton’s Bequest (AR 181, Item 6) was chosen to illustrate the beginning of the Galton Laboratory as a more substantial lab for UCL, but also because its first page illustrated very clearly salaries and other expenses for it. It was also an excellent item to demonstrate the type of material we hold in our collections from the Records Office. The item displayed next to it (again from the Records Office, COLLEGE COLLECTION BC 15) brought also the finances of the Laboratory into discussion, as it was the unsuccessful Appeal for Funds to build the Francis Galton Laboratory for the Study of National Eugenics. With this item I wanted to highlight the importance of Galton’s funding and pose the question of the laboratory’s success, seen through the lens of an unsuccessful appeal to raise money: How successful was a lab that could not attract enough attention for funding from the wider society? The printed booklet also included a plan for the proposed building (indeed I chose to have the item displayed at that page so the audience could see the title page next to the proposed building plan).

Publications.

With the next theme I wanted to start the discussion of the scientific context of the time, and scientific reaction to biometrics and the work of the laboratory. The debates generated were then put in the context of Pearson as a self-publishing scientist. The aim was to encourage the audience to reflect on the critics that are hardly mentioned when

Page | 5 discussing the Galton Laboratory, and on the significance of balancing the laboratory’s history with this context.

The first item of this theme was Pearson’s paper ‘On the Principle of Homotyposis and it Relation to Heredity’ (PEARSON/3/6/10/2). This was essentially the paper the drew criticism from scientist of the day, and especially from the geneticist William Bateson, who not only criticized its scientific methods, but started an almost 10-year-long attack on Pearson and biometry. This was also put in the context of Weldon attracting similar criticism already from 1895 with his papers in the use of statistics to prove evolutionary theories, and how the two of them were seen as part of the same (Biometric) school. The debate with Bateson on this particular paper convinced Pearson that he would never be able to publish anything ever again as long as Bateson is part of the committee. It has been widely acknowledged that this sparked the founding of Biometrika, despite the fact that the publication of the paper did in the end go ahead. The discussion on Pearson’s publications was then put in the context of what we know about his personality – an individual who heavily controlled publications, with Biometrika essentially being the medium for him to advocate his methods, and a place where those objecting were simply made redundant. Indeed, the same was also true for his work in the laboratory, where students were discouraged from voicing concerns on his scientific methods. As was the case with Galton, I wanted to re-connect the man and the science, and ask the audience in this way to reflect on what this can tell us about a scientist, particularly when he avoids any scientific criticism on his methods.

The Homotyposis paper was put side-by-side with a list of subscriptions of Biometrika from its early years (1901, PERSON/7/1/4) essentially to start the discussion of the US having a great interest in eugenics around that time. This was put in the context of the 1905 IQ test developed by Alfred Binet and how this was used by US eugenicists not just to discriminate but to also successfully influence legislations. The two themes that emerged from the subscriptions was on one hand the level of support from the US – as opposed from the UK that had a handful of subscriptions, indicative of the lack of interest in Pearson’s work – but also to demonstrate that eugenics did not develop only in the UK or at UCL: There was a much wider context and support for it. The last publication on display was the Eugenics Laboratory Series (GALTON LABORATORY/3/3) essentially to demonstrate that the Laboratory also had its own publications, which again were used heavily by Pearson to publish.

Page | 6

Debates.

The next two items were essentially a further example of the scientific objections on Pearson’s work. The paper he published along with Elderton, ‘A Second Study of the Influence of Parental Alcoholism on the Physique and Ability of the Offspring’ (1910, PEARSON/3/15/6/3) was put alongside Sturge’s and Horsley’s ‘On Some of the Biological and Statistical Errors in the Work on Parental Alcoholism by Miss Elderton and Professor Karl Pearson, F R S’ (1911, PEARSON/3/15/6/6).

The choice in displaying the second item was either to display its first page only (where the title appeared) of have it open so attendees could see the second page, where the objections were very explicitly explained. I opted to display both pages, as I thought it was important for audiences to see the scale of the objections: ‘Complete Absence of Fundamental Data. Error 1: Absence of Controls; Error 2: Unscientific Use of Terms; Error 3: Selection by the Authors of a Non-Representative Population’. I encouraged everyone to download the article as it is available from The British Medical Journal (BMJ) and mentioned the paper’s part where Surgeon and Horsley almost mock Pearson and Elderton for their inability to even read correctly his own data.

Wider Contest.

To illustrate the wider context of the Galton Laboratory, I chose a little paper cutting from the Eugenics Education Society that appeared in the Morning Advertiser under the title ‘Eugenics and Poor Law: Eliminating the Feeble Minded’ (GALTON/2/13/1/8). With this item I wanted to open the discussion on the 1913 Mental Deficienty Act, where the Eugenics Education Society was instrumental – indeed, they drafter the Bill which eventually passed. I wanted the audience to also reflect on how the fact that we don’t see the word ‘eugenics’ today, it does not mean that it has disappeared, but rather, that it has acquired a more subtle form.

Reception.

I was quite struck by the comments from attendees that this was the first time they had a chance to see the Galton Laboratory in its context. The general reaction was ‘I didn’t know!’ The idea to present the laboratory in a more well-thought and well- researched way was generated also by a set of images I received for an exhibition on

Page | 7

Galton: An exhibition case of Galton material, discussing the scientist, completely ignoring the man behind it, or even the context that generated all this.

I had requests to repeat this by various members of staff from the Department of Science and Technology Studies and have been asked whether there is any possibility of organizing something similar for the Decolonising STEM symposium that will be taking place in early October. In any case, I saw this as a first opportunity and attempt to engage audiences with controversial material, and to prove hopefully that there is indeed a way of engaging them without engaging in decontextualisations that reduce the discussion in ‘eugenics were good’ or ‘eugenics were bad’. I also thought that by carefully selecting items that can be contrasted, and asking both sides to think and interpret what they have in front of them, will engage them more in reflecting what actually did happen, as opposed to what they think happened – which normally, from my experience engaging with this type of audiences, stems from what they have either heard somewhere, misread or misinterpreted themselves, and never from something they actually did take the time to research. In fact, there is no need for that: The material speaks brilliantly for itself when it is contextualised.

Mental Deficiency Act 1913 Source: G R Searle Eugenics and Politics in Britain, 1900-1914 Leyden: Noordhoff, 1976 Chapter 9: The Mental Deficiency Act, 1913.

MPs involved included: Winston Churchill (Home Secretary between February 1910 and October 1910) who was very supportive and went as far as drafting a supporting letter to Asquith about the ‘multiplication of the unfit’, ‘a very terrible danger to the race’. ‘He informed Asquith that until the public came round to accepting the need for sterilizing operations, the feeble minded would have to be kept in custodial care, segregated from the world and from the opposite sex’ Also circulated Tredgold’s ‘The Feeble Minded: A social Danger’ to the Cabinet (Tredgold became an EES member) Churchill Moved to Admiralty in 1912, new Home Secretary became Reginald McKenna. Liberal MP Walter Rea (one of the few MPs who had Eugenics Education Society Membership) arranged a meeting in December 1911 at the House of Commons for the Eugenics Education Society to explain the contents of their Feeble-Minded Persons (Control) Bill to all MPs and Parties.

‘The governments Bill, The Mental Deficiency Bill, was at last published and passed its second reading on 19 July 1912 by the margin on 230 votes to 38. But it was then strangled in standing committee; persistent hostility from a small but determined group of backbenchers, unsatisfactory drafting which bothered even those MPs who supported the principle of the Bill and lack of Parliamentary time all led to the dropping of the measure at the end of the Session. […] [Josiah] Wedgwood, the most persistent critic, was particularly aghast at Clause 17, which permitted feeble-minded persons to be placed in custodia care when ‘it [was] desirable in the interests of the community that they should be deprived of the opportunity of procreating children’; Wedgwood called this ‘the most abominable thing ever suggested’ and hinted that the sponsors of the Bill wished to sterilize defectives. A clause making it a misdemeanor to marry a defective was additional proof, to men like Wedgwood, that the whole agitation was tainted with the ‘spirit of the horrible Eugenics Education Society which is setting out to b reed up the working classes as thought they were cattle’. […] Thus when McKenna introduced the Mental Deficiency Bill in a new form in 1913, he went out of his way to play down any connections it might have had with the EES. Gone was the controversial section of the old Clause 17 and gone too the prohibition of marriage with a defective. […] The measure received a Royal Assent on 15 August and was due to take effect on 1 April 1914. […] the EES could feel considerable satisfaction. The Home Office had consulted them in the re-drafting of the Bill. […] The Mental Deficiency Act, to quote the Eugenics Review, was ‘the only piece of English social law extant, in which the influence of heredity has been treated as a practical factor in determining its provisions’.

Further sources (mainly legal): Report of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded, Parliamentary Papers, 1908[CD4202], xxxix, 159.

Hansard 5th Series (Commons), 1, col. 424, 22 February 1901 Hansard 5th Series (Commons), 17, col. 1166, 13 June 1910 Hansard 5th Series (Commons), 38, cols. 1443-50, 17 May 1912 Hansard 5th Series (Commons), 38, cols. 1461-2, 17 May 1912 Hansard 5th Series (Commons), 45, col. 782, 12 December 1912

Hansard 5th Series (Commons), 41, col. 710, 19 July 1912 Hansard 5th Series (Commons), 38, col. 1474, 17 May 1912

Eugenics Review quoted above: ER, 6 (1914-15), 52.

Date of Letter Reference Number From To

9 March 1994 116/615 1 October 1993 30 September 1994

21 December 1990 116/615/1 Session 1991-1992

9 October 1990 116/615/1 1990-1991?

9 October 1990 116/615/1 1990-1991? Name Sum Department Admin Staff Job Title Department of Genetics and Assistant Director, Student Biometry Finance Department of Genetics and Assistant Registrar, Student Biometry Finance Department of Genetics and Student Finance, Registrar's Biometry Division

Department of Genetics and Student Finance, Registrar's Biometry Division Research Copied in: Name of staff Copied in: Job title Department's Staff Member

Postgraduate work, unspecified Planning and Resources Division

Postgraduate work, unspecified

Supplement to NERC studentship for 1 academic year Job Title Finance Code

FH 698 W2

FH 698 W2

FH 698 W2

FH 698 W2 1904 1906 1911 1913 Department of Applied Founding of the Francis Statistics merging with Founding of the Galton Laboratory for Biometric Laboratory and Eugenics Records the Study of National the Francis Galton Office Eugenics Galton Bequest Laboratory

Galton Chair 1925 1933 1944

L S Penrose succeeds R A Fisher as Karl Pearson Retires Galton Professor

Department of Statistics and Eugenics Split

Galton Professor: R A Fisher WELDON BENEFACTION Haldane: Professor of Biometry and Zoology ANNALS OF EUGENICS Penrose editor of Annals of Human Founding of Annals of Eugenics Genetics 1954 1957 1958 1965

Penrose becomes Galton Professor, Haldane retires Head of Department of Eugenics, from Weldon Chair Biometry and Genetics of Biometry Penrose retires Harry Harris becomes Head of Department of Human Genetics and Biometry, Galton Professor and Galton Laboratory director C A B Smith becomes Weldon Professor of Biometry and succeeds Haldane

Harry Harris and CAB Smith joint editors 1967 1976 1978 1982 Bette Robson becomes Galton MOVE TO WOLFSON HOUSE: Professor, Director of the DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN Galton Laboratory, Head of GENETICS AND BIOMETRY, Department of Human Weldon Chair in AND GALTON LABORATORY Harry Harris resigns Genetics Abeyance

ANNALS OF HUMAN GENETICS 1900 1994 2009

J S Jones becomes Head of Bette Department of Genetics and Robson Nicholas Wood becomes Galton Biometry. retires Professor of Genetics

Galton professor unfilled for 15 years until 2009

Finding digital images on our Digital Collections Catalogue. UCL Special Collections has a number of collections digitized. When it comes to eugenics, the collections available are those of Galton, Karl Pearson, JBS Haldane and LS Penrose. Some Records Office material is also available online in digital form, though this includes mainly Council meeting minutes and calendars.

The Digital Collections catalogue can be found on our Special Collections page. On the right hand side, click on ‘Digital Collections’.

This will open up a new page with three options: Basic, advanced, and browse.

In the screenshot above, I have searched for a specific Galton record, narrowing my search to ‘exact’. This will give us the image of the exact record we are looking for, as seen below.

Click on either the image, or the PDF icon to download the image:

To browse the collection: From the Digital Collections webpage, click on the ‘Browse Collections’ tab:

This will give you all the digitized collections available for browsing. For the Eugenics Inquiry, the most relevant ones are the Genetics Papers and Records Office.

Clicking on the Genetics Papers will give more options:

From here we can either click on the tabs, or the icons below. The next webpage will look like this:

As a means of understanding how this work, click on ‘Browse by Series’ (seen in the screenshot above) and on ‘Scientific Papers’ from the next screen. This will give us the next webpage as seen below:

This screen works really well if you use it in conjunction with our catalogue and the tree structure. The tree structure (from our Special Collections catalogue) for the Galton Scientific papers looks like this: Note that the order of the records on the tree corresponds that of the order of the links from our digital collections.

Click to expand the ‘Heredity in Man’ section and open the records to reveal ‘Heredity Genius’:

On the Digital Collections, this looks like this:

Clicking on Heredity Genius will give more links to click. That’s because on our catalogue there are more records below this level:

Clicking on the ‘Heredity Genius Working Papers’ will give us all the images associated with that record:

A guide to using our UCL Special Collections Catalogue for Archives and Manuscripts.

Finding material in our Special Collections catalogue is relatively easy, though the more precise the search, the easiest it is to retrieve the relevant record. As the finding aid has hopefully gathered the information for users, it should be very straight-forward finding (and ordering) material from our collections.

There are two ways of finding our UCL Special Collections Archives and Manuscripts from the main UCL Webpage. The first is from the search box that appears at the right-hand side top corner of the webpage, simply typing ‘Special Collection’ in the Search Box.

This will take you to the right link:

The second way of finding our catalogue is again from the main UCL webpage, this time scrolling down to the bottom of the page, and selecting the link for the ‘Library’, at the left- hand side of the screen:

This will take you to the library’s main web page. From here, you will need to click on ‘Special Collections, Archives & Exhibitions’ links, at the left-hand side of the screen at the top.

From the next screen (below) click on the ‘UCL Special Collections’ link.

This will take you to the next screen, which is our Special Collections webpage. On the right hand side of the screen, you will see a few options, from which you need to click on the ‘Catalogues’ link.

The next screen will give you the ‘Archives and manuscripts’ link to the catalogue, highlighted below.

The next screen (seen below) gives you a few options. The first is a basic ‘Quick Search’, pictured below.

Highlighted on the screenshot above, is the link to our advanced search (ironically indicated simply as ‘search’) and which will take you to a screen presenting you with more options. Perhaps the most important field (when it comes to using the finding aid produced as part of the Inquiry) is the ‘Reference Number’ field. Simply adding the reference number of the record you are looking for (GALTON LABORATORY/4/1) will give you the exact record you are looking for:

The same kind of search however (using the exact reference number) is very effective also in our ‘Quick Search’.

Using the exact reference number of the record you are looking for, has the advantage that you essentially tell the catalogue exactly what you are looking for. As a result, chances are that you will be presented with the exact record you are looking for (as opposed to 50 records from which you will have to identify the one you are looking for). In this case, the catalogue has found the record that corresponds to the Reference Number I searched for (GALTON LABORATORY/4/1), and the next screen is essentially a very short description (title and date) of what this Reference Number is. Clicking on the Full Record, will take us to the next screen where we can see a more detailed description of the record.

In the screen below, we see exactly what the item is all about. We can see the title, date range, but also its extent (in this case 1 box plus 6 outsize items) and a full description of what the items are.

Clicking on the Reference Number (in the red box below) will open the tree structure for the entire Galton Laboratory Collection. This can be particularly useful if we want to see what other items the collection contains, but to also understand, for instance, how this record relates to others from the collection (i.e. in which part of the collection is has been grouped).

Understanding the tree of the collection enables us to understand what other material the collection contains that might be of interest. In the screenshot below, I have clicked on the ‘Expand’ sections of the tree (highlighted in blue boxes) to open a different part of the Galton Laboratory collection. Viewing the record on the tree makes it also easier to understand what the reference numbers of each record really mean and why they are there. The reference numbers indicate the place of the record in the entire tree that represents the collection. In this case, we get a better idea of where the ‘Notes on Family Case Studies’ belongs, and what other relevant records around this subject the Galton Laboratory Collection has. The record’s reference number (2/1/1) indicates the level of ‘layers’ above it, and represents exactly the group of the records where it belongs. In this case, it belongs to the record starting with 2 (a top-level group of records on Galton Laboratory Research Working Papers, with a date range of Late 19th Century), narrowing down to another group of records on Albinism (2/1) with a date range of 1810 to 1811. It is also evident from the tree structure, that the record GALTON LABORATORY/2/2/1 has more records to open, i.e. it is itself a top-level record of another group of records that we can uncover by clicking on the ‘Expand’ link next to it.

Clicking on the ‘Expand’ section next to the record, it will give us the next level down, which in this case is ‘Item’:

In this screenshot above, it becomes more clear how the collection is divided (highlighted in blue boxes): The top level ‘Collection’ is divided in Series, SubSeries, Files, and items, which are the lowest level (meaning they do not contain more records, i.e. there is no ‘Expand’ option). The reference number of 2/1/1/1 also makes more sense when seen as part of the File, SubSeries and Series above it. Hopefully this explains how the items of a collection are grouped together, and why, I think, it is always a good idea to see records in relation to the tree, as this will reveal more items that might be of interest.

All the items listed in the finding aid can be requested from UCL Special Collections by emailing [email protected] with your requests. As far as I know, all the material listed is

stored off-site, and Special Collections need time in advance to ensure the material is in our Reading Room at UCL. Do allow plenty of time for that (a week at least) and do try to be as specific as possible when requesting items. I would advise to include the Reference number, along with the Title at the very least (a short description might also help). In cases where one record appears to have a lot of boxes (as in the GALTON LABORATORY/4/1 above, which was described as ‘1 box plus 16 oversized items) it would be good to contact Special Collections, explain exactly which item you want to see (for instance, describe the item, in this case, the photo you are looking for) and Special Collections Staff would almost certainly know which box/item should be brought over. More details on access and facilities can be found at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/special- collections/access-facilities#contact