Galton Institute
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
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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:
| Member | Description |
|---|---|
| Arthur Balfour | |
| William Beveridge | Economist 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 Huxley | English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist |
| John Maynard Keynes | Very influential economist, Director of the Bank of England in the 1940s |
| Margaret Sanger | US eugenicist and birth control promoter. Long sponsored by the Rockefeller family. |
References
- ↑ http://archive.today/2021.07.19-165051/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton_Institute
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20100112045439/http://www.galtoninstitute.org.uk/
- ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2984766
- ↑ https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1931/jul/21/sterilization
- ↑ The activities of the Eugenics Society" by F. Schenk and A. S. Parkes, Eugenics Review 1968 September, 60(3), page 155
