Eugenics at the Royal Society, 1860-1950

The Royal Society has a strong link with eugenics: Francis Galton, the field's founder, was a
celebrated Fellow, and a substantial number of Fellows were active supporters of eugenics
(Boulter, 2017). However, due to eugenics' reputation as a science on the periphery
(Schaffer, 2008) conflicting with the Royal Society's reputation as a leading scientific
institution, a thorough investigation into the relationship between the two has never been
carried out. This project will fill this historiographical gap: spanning the period 1860-1950, it
will uncover this elite scientific institution's support of and role in the British eugenics
movement.
Though this project charts the history of the Royal Society's connection with eugenics for
the first time, it is not the first study of eugenics or an organisation's place in the movement
- for instance, there is a rich historiography of the Eugenics Society's role in British eugenics
(Bland and Hall, 2010; Hart, 2012; Searle, 1979). This project will draw on and enrich the
historiography of eugenics by assessing the Royal Society's relationship with it at the
personal, financial, and organisational level.
The British eugenics movement has traditionally been understood to centre around class
(Searle, 1979). However, more recent work has shown that British eugenics was also defined
by anti-Semitism (Maxwell, 2022; Hart, 2012), racism (Turda, 2010; Maxwell, 2022; Bland
and Hall, 2010; Poskett, 2021), and empire (Poskett, 2021; Boulter, 2017; Chakrabarti,
2021). This project will pursue this multi-faceted understanding of British eugenics, asking
how "developments" in racial science influenced the Royal Society's acceptance of it, and
how far the popularity of eugenics was linked to the political state of the country and
Empire.
This project spans a period of almost a century, during which the nature and priorities of
eugenics changed significantly (Searle, 1979; Hart, 2012; Boulter, 2017). It is therefore
important to ask: Did the Royal Society's understanding of what constituted eugenics
change over time, and how did this correlate to its level of support for the movement?
This project will enrich the historiographies of science, politics, and British colonialism. This
is because it will integrate these fields and reveal their interconnectivity while exploring a
previously unstudied topic. The project will also have a multi-stranded impact. Firstly, it will
encourage further research into the history of the Royal Society, as I will digitise archival
material - which will make it easier to navigate in future. Secondly, this project has the
active support of the Royal Society, meaning that there is a significant opportunity for public
engagement and impact. In a data-obsessed world where do-it-yourself genetic tests are
increasingly widely available, this project will undoubtedly be of interest to the public. I am
particularly excited to lead a workshop about the project at the Royal Society in my second
year. I would also be keen to curate an exhibition about an aspect of the project - this could
either be online or hosted by an institution such as the Science Museum.