The Galton Laboratory Until 1945

The Galton Laboratory was the academic encapsulation of eugenics. It was founded by Francis Galton in 1904 as the Eugenics Record Office. In 1911 Karl Pearson took up the chair of eugenics based at University College in London. He wished to develop it as a science and sought to gain influence in government. During the First World War the Galton Laboratory and the associated Biometric Laboratory carried out statistical and mathematical tasks for several departments of state. Academic eugenics enjoyed the support of professional journals and the quality press generally. The Galton Laboratory’s publications were too intricate to be attractive to the ordinary public. Some bias occurred in the work, particularly through field workers being asked to rate characteristics on a scale. Pearson and Margaret Moul published a multi-part article in the 1920s which found that alien immigration was not beneficial. In 1933 Ronald Fisher became director and in 1935 live genetic research into mental disorders began. He obtained funding from the Rockefeller Foundation for a serological laboratory. In the late 1930s anthropological studies showed no ill effects arising from race crossing. A separate investigation dismissed the utility of classifying ethnic groups in central Europe according to biological data.