The Adelphi Genetics Forum is a non-profit learned society based in the United Kingdom. Its aims are "to promote the public understanding of human heredity and to facilitate informed debate about the ethical issues raised by advances in reproductive technology."

It was founded by Sybil Gotto in 1907 as the Eugenics Education Society, with the aim of promoting the research and understanding of eugenics.

The Society was renamed the Galton Institute in 1989. In 2021, it was renamed the Adelphi Genetics Forum. The organisation is currently based in Wandsworth, London.

History

Creation of the Eugenics Education Society

thumb|left|235x235px|Sybil Gotto, founder of the Eugenics Education Society (20th century). Image from the Wellcome Library.

thumb|237x237px|Sir Francis Galton, circa 1890s. Honorary President of the Eugenics Education Society (1907–1911). Image from the Wellcome Library.

The Eugenics Education Society (EES) was founded in 1907 at the impetus of 21-year-old Sybil Gotto, a widowed social reformer. Inspired by Francis Galton's work on eugenics, Gotto began looking for supporters to start an organization aimed at educating the public about the benefits of eugenics. by James Slaughter, the Secretary of the Sociological Society. Galton would go on to be Honorary President of the Society from 1907 to 1911. Gotto and Crackanthorpe presented their vision before a committee of the Moral Education League, requesting that the League change its name to the Eugenic and Moral Education League, but the committee decided that a new organization should be formed exclusively devoted to eugenics.<br />The goals of Eugenics Education Society, as stated in first issue of the Eugenics Review were:

  1. “Persistently to set forth the National Importance of Eugenics in order to modify public opinion, and create a sense of responsibility in the respect of bringing all matters pertaining to human parenthood under the domination of Eugenic ideals.
  2. To spread a knowledge of the Laws of heredity so far as they are surely known, and so far as that knowledge might affect the improvement of the race.
  3. To further Eugenic Teaching at home, in the schools, and elsewhere."

Activities

1907 to 1939

The main activities the Eugenics Education Society engaged in were research, propaganda, and legislative lobbying. Many campaigns were joint efforts with other social reform groups. The EES met with 59 other organizations between 1907 and 1935.

1942 to 1989

The Eugenics Society underwent a hiatus during the Second World War and did not reconvene until 1942, under the leadership of General Secretary Carlos Blacker.

The last volume of the Eugenics Review was published in 1968. It was succeeded by the Journal of Biosocial Science. The following year a Parliamentary Committee for Legalising Eugenic Sterilization was established and, in July 1931, Archibald Church M.P. (a member of both the Committee and of the Eugenics Society) rose in the House of Commons to introduce a bill “to enable mental defectives to undergo sterilizing operations or sterilizing treatment upon their own application, or that of their spouses or parents or guardians.” In his speech, Church said that the bill was "... merely a first step in order that the community as a whole should be able to make an experiment on a small scale so that later on we may have the benefit of the results and experience gained in order to come to conclusions before bringing in a Bill for the compulsory sterilisation of the unfit." Nonetheless, it was defeated.

At this point, “three weighty organisations” joined the campaign and “a concerted petition for an official inquiry was submitted to the then Minister of Health.” This led to the formation of a Departmental Committee on Sterilization (the Brock Committee) in June 1932. The apparent groundswell of support for sterilization was deceptive. According to John Macnicol: “Blacker admitted in private that the lobbying technique of the [Eugenics] society was to make it appear as if the demand for an official enquiry emanated from these large bodies, whereas in fact it was the [Eugenics] society that was masterminding the campaign”. “Between June 1932 and January 1934 the Brock committee held thirty-six meetings and interviewed sixty witnesses. Dominated by its chairman, Laurence Brock, who pulled every string to assist the society in its campaign (thus flagrantly violating civil service neutrality), the committee’s report recommended the legalization of voluntary sterilization for three identifiable categories of patient — mental defectives of the mentally disordered, persons suffering from a transmissible physical disability (for example, hereditary blindness), or persons likely to transmit mental disorder or defect.” Brock also met secretly with Blacker to advise him on how to improve the wording of the society’s draft sterilization bill.

This practice of secrecy became official policy in 1960. In a 1957 memorandum to the Council of the Eugenics Society, Blacker made recommendations on how to promote the eugenic cause in the aftermath of the Second World War and how to fix the Society's dwindling membership (from 768 in 1932 to 456 in 1956). He suggested that they "pursue eugenic ends by less obvious means, that is by a policy of crypto-eugenics, which was apparently proving successful with the US Eugenics Society." In February 1960, the Council resolved that their "activities in crypto-eugenics should be pursued vigorously, and specifically that the Society should increase its monetary support of the FPA [Family Planning Association] and the IPPF [International Planned Parenthood Federation]" and to change its name to "The Galton Society". Furthermore, "The Adelphi Genetics Forum wishes to state clearly and unequivocally that it deplores these outmoded and discredited ideas, which should play no part in society today," but also that "Galton's contribution to modern science deserves to be recognised and acknowledged." Former President Veronica van Heyningen has acknowledged that "Galton was a terrible racist," but she believes it is "reasonable to honour him by giving his name to institutions" due to his significant contribution to the field of genetics.

Finances

In 1930, the EES received a substantial endowment from the estate of Henry Twitchin, an English-born farmer who had moved to Western Australia in 1890 and amassed substantial pastoral lease holdings, before retiring to the French Riviera. The EES received the residue of Twitchin's estate, which had been valued at up to £160,000 in 1921 (). The bequest made the society "financially comfortable, ensured its archives were saved and gave it an influence far beyond its small membership".

Membership and associated bodies

The EES did not exist in isolation, but was rather a part of a large network of Victorian reform groups that existed in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century. Most members of the EES were educated and prominent in their fields – at one point all members were listed in professional directories., While the majority of members came from the professional class, there were also a few members from the clergy and aristocracy, such as Reverend William Inge, the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, and the Earl and Countess of Limerick.

Prominent members

  • Leonard Arthur, tried for murder in 1981 but acquitted
  • The 1st Earl of Balfour
  • Florence, Lady Barrett
  • The 1st Baron Beveridge
  • Paul Blanshard
  • Sir Walter Bodmer
  • The 1st Baron Brain
  • Chris Brand
  • Sir Cyril Burt
  • Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister (1937–1940)
  • Sir Winston Churchill, Honorary Vice President
  • Sir John Cockburn
  • David Coleman
  • James Herbert Curle
  • Archbishop Charles D'Arcy
  • Charles Davenport, Vice President (1931)
  • Mary Dendy
  • Sir Robert Edwards
  • Havelock Ellis
  • Hans Eysenck
  • Sir Ronald Fisher
  • Edmund B. Ford
  • Agnes Fry
  • Sir Francis Galton, after whom the institute was eventually renamed
  • Charles Goethe
  • Ezra Gosney
  • Madison Grant
  • David Starr Jordan, Vice President (1916, 1931)
  • Franz Josef Kallmann
  • John Harvey Kellogg
  • The 1st Baron Keynes, Director (1937–1944), Vice President (1937)
  • Richard Lynn
  • James Meade
  • Sir Peter Medawar
  • The Baroness Mitchison
  • Sybil Neville-Rolfe, née Gotto, founder
  • Henry Fairfield Osborn
  • Frederick Osborn
  • Roger Pearson
  • Alfred Ploetz, Vice President (1916)
  • Margaret Pyke
  • Margaret Sanger
  • Eliot Slater
  • Marie Stopes
  • James Mourilyan Tanner
  • Richard Titmuss
  • Alice Vickery
  • Sir Arnold Wilson
  • Frank Yates

Presidents

Eugenics Education Society (1911–1926)

  • James Crichton-Browne, President (1908–1909)
  • Montague Crackanthorpe, President (1909–1911)
  • Leonard Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, President (1911–1929)

Eugenics Society (1926–1989)

  • Bernard Mallet, President (1929–1933)
  • Humphry Rolleston, President (1933–1935)
  • Thomas Horder, President (1935–1949)
  • Alexander Carr-Saunders, President (1949–1953)
  • Charles Galton Darwin, grandson of Charles Darwin, President (1953–1959)
  • Julian Huxley, Vice-president (1937–1944), President (1959–1962)
  • James Gray, President (1962–1965)
  • Robert Platt, President (1965–1968)
  • Alan Parkes, President (1968–1970)
  • P. R. Cox, President (1970–1972)
  • C. O. Carter, President (1972–1976)
  • Harry Armytage, President (1976–1982)
  • Bernard Benjamin, President (1982–1987)

Galton Institute

  • Margaret Sutherland, President (1987–1993)
  • G. Ainsworth Harrison, President (1993–1994)
  • Peter Diggory, President (1994–1996)
  • Robert Peel, President (1996–1999)
  • John Timson, President (1999–2002)
  • Steve Jones, President (2002–2008)
  • Walter Bodmer, President (2008–2014)
  • Veronica van Heyningen, President (2014–2020)
  • Turi King, President (2020–2021)

Adelphi Genetics Forum (2021–present)

  • Turi King, President (2021–2023)
  • Nicholas Wood, President (2023–present)

Collections

The archive of the Adelphi Genetics Forum is held at the Wellcome Collection, London. The collection includes correspondence, governance papers, and administrative files.