Galton Institute

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Group.png Galton Institute   WebsiteRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
Galton Institute.png
Formation1907
FounderSybil Gotto
HeadquartersLondon, England
TypeNGO
InterestsEugenics
Membership• Leonard Arthur
• Arthur Balfour
• Florence Barrett
• William Beveridge
• Paul Blanshard
• Walter Bodmer
• Russell Brain
• Chris Brand
• Cyril Burt
• Neville Chamberlain
• Winston Churchill
• John Cockburn
• David Coleman
• James Herbert Curle
• Charles D'Arcy
• Charles Davenport
• Mary Dendy
• Robert Geoffrey Edwards
• Havelock Ellis
• Hans Eysenck
• Ronald Fisher
• E. B. Ford
• Agnes Fry
• Francis Galton
• Charles Goethe
• Ezra Gosney
• Madison Grant
• David Starr Jordan
• Franz Josef Kallmann
• John Harvey Kellogg
• John Maynard Keynes
• Richard Lynn
• James Meade
• Peter Medawar
• Naomi Mitchison
• Sybil Neville-Rolfe
• Henry Fairfield Osborn
• Frederick Osborn
• Roger Pearson
• Alfred Ploetz
• Margaret Pyke
• Margaret Sanger
• Eliot Slater
• Marie Stopes
• James Mourilyan Tanner
• Richard Titmuss
• Alice Vickery
• Frank Yates
• Julian Huxley
• Carlos Blacker
• James Crichton-Browne
• Montague Crackanthorpe
• Leonard Darwin
• Bernard Mallet
• Humphry Rolles
• Thomas Horde
• Alexander Carr-Saunder
• Charles Galton Darwin
British association to promote eugenics. Since the 1960s doing so by "by less obvious means".

The Galton Institute is a nonprofit association based in London to promote eugenics;[1], since 2021, it is continued as Adelphi Genetics Forum.

Own words

"To promote the public understanding of human heredity and to facilitate informed debate about the ethical issues raised by advances in reproductive technology".[2]

History

1930s poster

It was founded by Sybil Gotto in 1907 as the Eugenics Education Society, with the aim of promoting the research and understanding of eugenics. Members came predominately from the professional class and included eminent scientists such as Francis Galton. The Society engaged in advocacy and research to further their eugenic goals, and members participated in activities such as lobbying Parliament, organizing lectures, and producing propaganda. It became the Eugenics Society in 1924 (often referred to as the British Eugenics Society to distinguish it from others). From 1909 to 1968 it published The Eugenics Review, a scientific journal dedicated to eugenics. Membership reached its peak during the 1930s. The Society was renamed the Galton Institute in 1989 and was renamed Adelphi Genetics Forum in 2021.

In 1928, the Society published the first draft of its Sterilization Bill in the Eugenics Review.[3] The following year a Parliamentary Committee for Legalising Eugenic Sterelization was established and, in July 1931, Archibald Church M.P. (a member of both the Committee and of the Eugenics Society) rose in the House of Commons to introduce a bill "to enable mental defectives to undergo sterilizing operations or sterilizing treatment upon their own application, or that of their spouses or parents or guardians." In his speech, Church said that the bill was "... merely a first step in order that the community as a whole should be able to make an experiment on a small scale so that later on we may have the benefit of the results and experience gained in order to come to conclusions before bringing in a Bill for the compulsory sterilisation of the unfit." Nonetheless, it was defeated.[4]

"Crypto" (secret) Eugenics

The practice of secrecy became official policy in 1960. In a 1957 memorandum to the Council of the Eugenics Society, General Secretary Carlos Blacker made recommendations on how to promote the eugenic cause in the aftermath of the Second World War, which had given the concept a bad name, and how to fix the Society's dwindling membership (from 768 in 1932 to 456 in 1956). He suggested that they "pursue eugenic ends by less obvious means, that is by a policy of crypto-eugenics, which was apparently proving successful with the US Eugenics Society." In February 1960, the Council resolved that their "activities in crypto-eugenics should be pursued vigorously, and specifically that the Society should increase its monetary support of the FPA (Family Planning Association) and the IPPF (International Planned Parenthood Federation)" and to change its name to "The Galton Society".[5]


 

Known members

8 of the 58 of the members already have pages here:

MemberDescription
Arthur Balfour
William BeveridgeEconomist who helped shape welfare state policies and institutions in post-World War II Britain .
Neville Chamberlain
Winston Churchill
Madison Grant"Hitler's American guru"
Julian HuxleyEnglish evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist
John Maynard Keynes
Margaret SangerUS eugenicist and birth control promoter. Long sponsored by the Rockefeller family.
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References