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The Galton Laboratory: A Biography
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The Galton Laboratory: A Biography
The 2nd Anthropometric Laboratory (contd.)
BIOMETRICS
The statistical study of animals
The Eugenics Record Office @UCL
Established Eugenics as an academic discipline
In 1904 Galton proposed a research fellowship in 'National Eugenics' @ UCL. The Principal accepted the proposal within a month and allocated rooms at
- 88 Gower Street. This was separate from the Biometric Laboratory.
Galton donated £1,500 for a 3 year post (= c.£86,000) studying Eugenics.
- Mr. Egdar Schuster was appointed with
- Miss E.M. Elderton as his assistant.
- The research fellowship eventually developed into the Galton Chair.
According to Karl Pearson:
"If in the future the question arises when and where did Eugenics as an academic branch of study take its origina, the answer can only be: In the autumn of 1904 in the two rooms at No. 50 Gower Street under the direction of Francis Galton... When Eugenics becomes a great factor of academic and political life -- as important as State Medicine, -- which I have no doubt it will be in the future, then that house will deserve to be commemorated!" (1930).
The 2nd Anthropometric Laboratory
The work done here contributed to establishing anthropology as an academic subject.
- Initially transferred from the International Health Exhibition premises to a patch of 'vacant ground' accessible through the South Kensington Museum
- From 1885 to 1888 (when the land was taken over by the Imperial Institute).
- 3,678 people measured and recorded.
Then moved into the South Kensington Museum
- The Western Gallery of the South Kensington Science Collection.
- Galton described it as a "larger and better lighted space"
In 1892 Galton admitted the the lab was unfinished and not fit for purpose. It needed dedicated and trained staff and "... after six years' experience [Galton] had begun to realise that an Anthropometric Laboratory cannot remain stationary either in its methods or instruments. It must always be starting new inquiries, and needs for this purpose a scientific research staff (Karl Pearson, 1924)
The 1st Anthropometric Laboratory
Established for the systematic collection of anthropometric data
At the International Health Exhibition 1884 @ South Kensington
- Located in the East Corridor Annexe Entrance from the South Gallery
- Measurements taken by instruments of Galton's original design, which were copied internationally.
- 9,337 people measured and recorded, 3d/person (=75p), 1 form for the participant and a copy for the Lab.
Francis Galton
Statistician, polymath
- propounder of eugenics
W.F.R. Weldon
Evolutionary biologist
- UCL Jodrell Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy 1891 - 1899
- In 1936 his widow left money to UCL to establish a Chair of Biometrics in his memory.
Karl Pearson
Biostatistician
- UCL Professor of Applied Maths, 1884
- Managed the Biometric Laboratory
- Was the 1st Galton Professor of Eugenics and directed the Eugenics Laboratory, 1911.