- Farrell , L.A. 1970 . The Origins and Growth of the English Eugenics Movement , Indiana University . unpublished PhD thesis idem, ‘The History of Eugenics: A Bibliographical Review’, Annals of Science, 36 (1979), 111–23; G. R. Searle, Eugenics and Politics in Britain, 1900–14 (Leyden, 1976); idem, ‘Eugenics and Politics in Britain in the 1930s’, Annals of Science, 36 (1979), 159–69; G. Jones, Social Darwinism and English Thought (Brighton, 1980); idem, Social Hygiene in Twentieth Century Britain (London, 1986). D. J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics (New York, 1985) (for Britain and the USA); J. Macnicol, ‘In Pursuit of the underclass 1918–39’, Journal of Social Policy, 16 (1987), 293–318; idem, ‘Eugenics and the Campaign for Voluntary Sterilisation between the Wars’, Social History of Medicine, 2 (1989), 147–69; D. Barker, ‘The Biology of Stupidity: Genetics, Eugenics and Mental Deficiency in the Inter War Years’, British Journal for the History of Science, 22 (1989), 347–75; P. M. H. Mazumdar, Eugenics, Human Genetics and Human Failings, The Eugenics Society, its Sources and its Critics in Britain (London, 1992); L. J. Ray, ‘Eugenics, Mental Deficiency and Fabian Socialism between the Wars’, Oxford Review of Education, 9 (1983), 213–27; R. A. Soloway, Birth Control and the Population Question in England 1877–1930 (Chapel Hill, 1982).
- Soloway , R.A. 1982 . “ Feminism, Fertility and Eugenics in Victorian and Edwardian Britain ” . In Political Symbolism in Modern Europe Edited by: Drescher , S. , Sabean , D. and Scharlin , A. New Brunswick in and a brief discussion in Jones, 1986 (footnote 1), 57–8.
- Brown , Ian . 1988 . Who were the Eugenicists? A study of the formation on an early twentieth century pressure group . History of Education , 17 : 295 – 307 . also Jones, 1986 (footnote 1), 43–62, and membership lists of the Eugenics Society.
- The Birmingham Heredity Society was associated with the Eugenics Education Society and, during the First World War, its membership was incorporated into the Eugenics Society proper. Its total membership including full members was 234, making it the largest by far of the provincial societies. It had many distinguished names in it including Joseph Chamberlain and Oliver Lodge, the physicist. Very little work has been done hitherto on the provincial societies except by Greta Jones Eugenics in Ireland, The Belfast Eugenics Society 1911–15 Irish Historical Studies 1992 28 109 81 95 The reason for the strength of the Birmingham society may lie in the very strong civic tradition that had grown up there under the aegis of the Chamberlain family. Joseph Chamberlain went on to become Minister of Health in the Conservative Government of 1925–29.
- The links that the eugenics movement established with social work organizations is one important reason for the high proportion of women in its ranks. The driving force in the period before the First World War in the National Association for the Care and Control of the Feebleminded was Ellen Pinsent, also a stalwart of the Birmingham Heredity Society. Mary Dendy in Manchester had also made a name for herself by setting up the Lancashire and Cheshire Schools for the Feebleminded. After the First World War Evelyn Fox became secretary and guiding spirit throughout the interwar years in the newly constituted Central Association for Mental Welfare (CAMW). The prominence of women such as Fox, Pinsent, and others in social work and their relationship to eugenics deserves separate examination. The eugenic spirit strongly imbued many of these social work organizations. ‘We forget that by succouring the weak we are enabling them to multiply their numbers and perpetuate that against which our moral nature revolts. At the same time we are neglecting or perhaps preventing the multiplication of the higher types’ Pinsent Ellen F. Social Responsibility and Heredity National Review 1910–11 56 507 508
- These included A. J. Tredgold and F. C. Shrubshall, members of the Eugenics Society and also their representatives on various commissions on the feeble-minded. Fox was in close touch with the Society on a number of their campaigns Jones Social Darwinism and English Thought Brighton 1986 82 83 1980
- For the relationship between the development of demography and the Eugenics Society, see Szreter Simon The First Scientific Social Structure of Modern Britain 1875–1883 The World We Have Gained. Essays in Honour of Peter Laslett Bondfield L. Smith R.M. Wrightson K. Oxford 1986 in
- Jones . 1986 . Social Darwinism and English Thought 88 – 109 . Brighton 1980
- Education (Provision of Meals Act) 1906; Education (Medical Inspection) Act, 1907; Midwives Act, 1902; Notification of Births Act, 1915; Children's Act, 1908. For the expansion in maternity and child welfare provision, see Lewis Jane The Politics of Motherhood London 1980 As Lewis has noted, this led to a torrent of advice and admonition from the medical profession and government agencies.
- Pick , Daniel . 1989 . Faces of Degeneration. A European Disorder c. 1848–1918 Cambridge Degeneration, the Dark Side of Progress, edited by J. H. Chamberlain and Sander Gilman (New York, 1985); Sex, Politics and Science in the 19th Century, edited by Peter Yeazell (Baltimore, 1986).
- Gilman , Sander . 1991 . The Jews Body London
- Francis Galton's strictures about the differential birth-rate were none the less accompanied by relative confidence in existing political and social; organizations. While he identified what seemed to him to be an urgent problem he did not share the pervasive pessimism about European civilization that overtook others at the turn of the century. For Galton, see Forrest D.W. Francis Galton: The Life and Work of a Victorian Genius London 1974
- Information on the declining birth-rate became generally available after a 1903 report by the Registrar General that showed that the number of children born to women aged 15–45 years had fallen from 304·1 per 1000 in 1876 to 234·2 per 1000 in 1901. In the same year, Karl Pearson, a disciple of Galton, drew attention in the Huxley Lecture to a fact already noted in some nineteenth-century surveys that the fertility of the higher social strata was lower than that of other social groups. Subsequent work under Pearson's direction at the Galton Laboratory founded at University College London in 1904, showed that the gap between the fertility of the social classes was widening. See Soloway Birth Control and the Population Question in England 1877–1930 Chapel Hill 1982
- Macnicol . 1987 . In Pursuit of the Underclass 1918–39 . Journal of Social Policy , 16 : 293 – 318 .
- Mort , Frank . 1987 . Dangerous Sexualities: Medico-Moral Politics in England since 1830 London Richard Davenport-Hines, Sex, Death and Punishment, Attitudes to Sex and Sexuality in Britain Since the Renaissance (London, 1990).
- Moscucci , Ornella . 1990 . The Science of Woman. Gynaecology and Gender in England 1800–1929 Cambridge
- Walkowitz , J. 1980 . Prostitution and Victorian Society, Women, Class and the State Cambridge Reconsiderations of First Wave Feminism, edited by E. Sarah (Oxford, 1983); Les Garner, Stepping Stones to Women's Liberty. Feminism and Woman's Suffrage in Twentieth Century England (London, 1984); Olive Banks, Becoming a Feminist, The Social Origins of First Wave Feminism (Brighton, 1986).
- Scharlieb , Mary . 1924 . Reminiscences London Obituary, Lancet, 29 November 1930, 1211–12. Catriona Blake, The Charge of the Parasols. Women's Entry into the Medical Profession (London, 1990).
- Obituary Lancet February 1940 24 Obituary of Elizabeth MacFarlane Sloan Chesser also in the British Medical Journal, 2 March 1940, 370.
- Information about Stella Browne has been taken from the Eugenics Society papers at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London; the Havelock Ellis Papers at the British Library, London. See also Rowbotham S. Weeks J. Socialism and the New Life London 1977 Lesley A. Hall, Wellcome Institute, London, allowed me to see her papers: ‘Disinterested enthusiasm for sexual misconduct: The British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology 1913–47’, and ‘No virtue in evasion: Feminism and Sex Reform before 1920’, which describe the milieu in which Browne operated.
- Davin , Anna . 1978 . Imperialism and Motherhood . History Workshop , : 9 – 65 . See also Lewis (footnote 9) and Brian Harrison, Separate Spheres. The Opposition to Woman's Suffrage in Britain (London, 1978).
- Chesser , E.S. 1913 . Woman, Marriage and Motherhood viii – viii . London
- Browne , Francis Worsley Stella . 1917 . “ Sexual Variety and Variability Among Women ” . In The British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology London no. 3 Paper read on 14 October 1915, p. 10.
- Scharlieb , Mary . 1917 . “ Marriage and Parenthood ” . In Six Lectures to Social Workers 27 – 27 . London
- Chesser . 1913 . Woman, Marriage and Motherhood 6 – 7 . London
- Chesser . 1913 . Woman, Marriage and Motherhood xiv – xv . London
- Chesser . 1913 . Woman, Marriage and Motherhood 253 – 253 . London
- Scharlieb , Mary . 1912 . Women and Race Regeneration 20 – 20 . London New Tracts for the Times
- Chesser . 1913 . Woman, Marriage and Motherhood 29 – 29 . London
- Chesser , E.S. 1914 . Physiology & Hygiene for Girls Schools and Colleges 102 – 102 . London
- Chesser , E.S. 1914 . Physiology & Hygiene for Girls Schools and Colleges 102 – 102 . London
- Mosse , George . 1988 . Nationalism and Sexuality, Middle Class Morality and Sexual Norms in Modern Europe Madison See also Ruth Harris, Murders and Madness, Medicine, Law and Society in the Fin de Si`ecle (Oxford, 1989).
- Chesser . 1913 . Woman, Marriage and Motherhood 29 – 29 . London
- Scharlieb . 1912 . Women and Race Regeneration 20 – 20 . London New Tracts for the Times
- August 1912 . “ A Few Straight Questions to the Eugenics Society ” . In The Freewoman August , 217 – 218 . Letter from F. W. Stella Browne 1
- See John Lawes of Rothamsted: Pioneer of Science, Farming and Industry Harpenden 1993
- Scharlieb , Mary . 1916 . The Hidden Scourge , National Life Series, no. 1 17 – 19 . London
- Austoker , Joan . 1981 . Biological Education and Social Reform. The British Social Hygiene Council 1925–1942 , University of London . unpublished MA thesis, Sybil Neville Rolfe, Social Biology and Welfare (London, 1949).
- October 1917 . Lancet October , 575 – 575 . Editorial, 13
- Scharlieb . 1916 . The Hidden Scourge , National Life Series, no. 1 93 – 93 . London
- These were Regulations 13A and 40D issued under the Defence of the Realm Act in 1916 and 1918 respectively. The first allowed the military to stop soliciting in the vicinity of troops and the second made it an offence for a woman with VD to sleep with a member of the forces. See Towers Bridget Health Education Policy 1916–26. Venereal Disease and the Prophylaxis Dilemma Medical History 1980 24 70 87
- Scharlieb . 1917 . “ Marriage and Parenthood ” . In Six Lectures to Social Workers 27 – 27 . London
- Showalter , E. 1986 . “ Syphilis, Sexuality and the Fin de Si`ecle Novel ” . In Sex, Politics and Science in the Nineteenth Century Edited by: Yeazell , R.B. Baltimore
- Pankhurst , Christobel . 1913 . The Great Scourge and How to End it London
- Davenport-Hines . 1990 . Sex, Death and Punishment, Attitudes to Sex and Sexuality in Britain Since the Renaissance 195 – 195 . London
- For Nietzsche's influence over eugenicists, see Schiller F.C.S. Social Decay and Eugenical Reform London 1932 The radical right in the Eugenics Society in the 1930s, such as George Pitt Rivers, described this text as encapsulating their views. The Secretary of the Eugenics Society advised that Pitt Rivers' views would further alienate the Labour Party and Pitt Rivers left the Society in the early 1930s over its failure to adopt a more radical position. Eugenics Society Papers, Eug/I.2, letter of Blacker to Pitt Rivers, 22 March 1932 (Wellcome Institute, Contemporary Medical Archives Centre London).
- Captain A. M. Ludovici (1882–1971). His work exemplifies many of the themes in this article. He was initially an artist and secretary to Rodin, and then a writer and novelist translating and lecturing on Nietzsche. His involvement in the debate on abortion arose out of his writings on health including Health and Education Through Self Mastery London 1933 Creation or Recreation (London, 1934); The Choice of a Mate (London, 1935). He combined, therefore, the Nietzschean view of health and the reassertion of masculine values, often connected to the political right. Among his other writings are A Defence of Conservatism (London, 1927); The Sanctity of Private Property (London, 1932); and The Specious Origins of Liberalism (London, 1967).
- Ludovici , Browne , F.W. , Ludovici , A.M. and Roberts , Harry . 1935 . Abortion 60 – 61 . London in
- R. A. Fisher, for example, who was secretary of the society in the 1920s was strongly influenced by Nietzschean views of regeneration. He was radical in his views of traditional morality but highly conservative on political and economic issues. For a discussion of how his genetics was influenced by his theories of sexual selection, see Bartley Mary M. Conflicts in Human progress; Sexual Selection and the Fisherian “runaway” British Journal for the History of Science 1994 27 177 196
- Sheila Jeffreys has already reached this view although she underestimates the degree to which the sexual reform movement was fractured along political and feminist lines Jeffreys Sheila The Spinster and Her Enemies London 1985
- Browne . 1917 . “ Sexual Variety and Variability Among Women ” . In The British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology London no. 3
- Browne . 1917 . “ Sexual Variety and Variability Among Women ” . In The British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology 6 – 6 . London no. 3
- Scharlieb , Mary , ed. 1924 . Sexual Problems of Today 187 – 187 . London
- Scharlieb , Mary , ed. 1924 . Sexual Problems of Today 187 – 187 . London
- Chesser . 1913 . Woman, Marriage and Motherhood 86 – 86 . London
- Foucault , M. 1978 . History of Sexuality Vol. 1 , 120 – 120 . New York
- Scharlieb . 1924 . Reminiscences 27 – 27 . London
- Scharlieb . 1916 . The Hidden Scourge , National Life Series, no. 1 93 – 93 . London
- Chesser . 1913 . Woman, Marriage and Motherhood 123 – 123 . London
- Chesser . 1913 . Woman, Marriage and Motherhood 131 – 131 . London She advocated ‘legislation aimed at abolishing married women's labour in the factory or away from home unless they could produce evidence that the husband was incapable of earning’.
- Chesser . 1913 . Woman, Marriage and Motherhood 123 – 123 . London
- Anon. The Poor and the Rich The Freewoman 1912 July 2 183 183 25
- British Library . Havelock Ellis Papers Add. MS 70539. Letter from Browne to Ellis, 5 September 1915.
- Saleeby , C.W. writing in the left liberal organ the New Statesman in 1914, pleaded for a eugenics that was free of class prejudice and that accepted the role of nurture or face being ‘rejected by responsible people’. See the Supplement on Motherhood and the State, 3, no. 58, 16 May 1914. Eugenics responded so badly that by 1929 it faced serious opposition from within the Labour movement to its demands.
- Barker . 1989 . The Biology of Stupidity: Genetics, Eugenics and Mental Deficiency in the Inter War Years . British Journal for the History of Science , 22 : 347 – 375 .
- The professionalization theory of eugenics is best expressed by MacKenzie Donald Statistics in Britain Edinburgh 1981 Ian Brown also suggests in his article (footnote 3), that this may have motivated women to join the Eugenics Society.
Annals of Science
Volume 52, 1995 - Issue 5
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