The Eugenics Society Until 1945

In 1907 the Eugenics Education Society was founded as a pressure group. Its role encompassed proselytizing and a research committee was formed in 1912. The same year it hosted the First International Eugenics Congress in London. It confirmed its social basis after 1914 by working in tandem with the Professional Classes War Relief Council. In the 1930s it shifted towards ‘reform’ eugenics and toned down the rhetoric about social class. A sustained outreach to the labour movement occurred, especially through the Women’s Cooperative Guild. The main motivation was to secure support for ‘voluntary’ sterilization, which had been rejected by the House of Commons in 1931. In 1934 the departmental Brock Committee unanimously recommended ‘voluntary’ sterilization for sufferers and carriers of hereditary afflictions. The Society’s drive to legalize sterilization increased opposition to eugenics. The government wanted a broader basis of support before considering the measure. The leftward shift within eugenics had political effects too. In 1938 it began cooperating with the Keynesian-style Political and Economic Planning. In 1943 William Beveridge argued on eugenic grounds for a flat-rate scheme of child benefit. Without abandoning its concern about the differential birth rate, it began to regard social mobility as a boon.