GALTON PAPERS
INTRODUCTION Provenance
The papers were deposited in University College London by Sir Francis Galton's executors soon after his death in 1911. They were added to by gifts from his nephew, Edward Galton Wheler-Galton„and from other members of the family. Purchases were made from sale rooms and private owners by Karl Pearson and other members of the Galton Laboratory during the following thirty years.
Biography of Sir Francis Galton (1822--1911)
Francis Galton was born in Birmingham on the 16th February, 1822. He was educated in Boulogne, Kenilworth and King Edward's School, Birmingham until the age of sixteen. He trained in medicine at Birmingham General Hospital and Kings College London until the spring of 1840 when he spent several months travelling through Europe, Turkey and Syria. On his return, 6 months later,
he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge. There he read mathematics and medicine. He took his B.A. in January 1844. Later in that year when his father died,a generous inheritance allowed Galton to give up all thought of medicine as a career. iie then devoted his life to travel, and to the study of a succession of virtually unexplored fields: the weather; physical and mental characters in man and animals; the influence of heredity on them; heredity in twins; fingerprints and personal identification. Late in his life he was zealous in advocating the study of "those agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally". He invented the word "eugenics" to describe this. He founded the Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics* at University College London to further his work.
Galton received many honours and awards. In 1851, he was awarded the Silver Medal of the French Geographical Society and
in 1853 the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. In 1860, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1886 he was awarded the Gold Medal, in 1902, the Darwin Medal, and in 1910, the Copley Medal of the same society. He was given an honorary D.C.L. of Oxford University in 1894, and elected to an honorary Fellowship of Trinity College Cambridge in 1910. He was knighted in 1909.
Galton was one of the founders of the review journal The Reader (1864-661 With Karl Pearson and W.F.R.Weldon, he founded Biometrika in 1901, a journal for the statistical study of biological problems. Galton was Secretary to the Council of the Royal Geographical Society from 1857 to 1863; he was General Secretary of the British Association 1863-67; twice President of the Geographical Section and of the Anthropological Section of the Association. He was :, member of the Council of the Royal Society
* Under Lionel Penrose, this name was changed to the Galton Laboratory, Department of Human Genetics and Biometry
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