Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T21:48:20.028Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Eugenics And Social Policy Between The Wars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Greta Jones
Greta Jones
Affiliation:
Ulster Polytechnic
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Communications
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , September 1982 , pp. 717 - 728
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Freeden, Michael, ‘Eugenics and progressive thought’, Historical Journal, xxii, 3 (1979), 645–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Among the names he cites are Richard Titmuss, Julian Huxley, J. B. S. Haldane and Lancelot Hogben.

3 Freeden, ‘Eugenics and progressive thought’, p. 666: ‘All the while the Eugenics Society itself had been moving into areas that concerned progressive social reformers – Family Allowances, Family planning and population research...’.

4 Ibid. p. 666.

5 Ibid. p. 661.

7 See Stevenson, John and Cook, Chris, The slump (London, 1977), p. 29Google Scholar ‘The conclusions of the social investigators of the 1930s were to have profound consequences for postwar Britain. They highlighted the need for greater state intervention, more rational planning of the social services and the ending of mass unemployment. These inquiries played vital part in the emergence of what has been called ‘a consensus on social responsibility’ in the years leading up to the Second World War.’

7 This retrospective justification reached its heights in Blacker, C. P., Eugenics: Gallon and after (London, 1952), p. 145Google Scholar. ‘In Galton's time there was much ignorance of how the under-privileged classes lived, and it was easier than it is today to overlook the effects of bad feeding, insanitary homes, over-crowding and poor education opportunities.’

8 See Addison, Paul, The road to 1945 (London, 1975)Google Scholar, on the impact of the Second World War. Also Harris, José, William Beveridge, a biography (Oxford, 1977), p. 414Google Scholar: ‘One of the most striking features of the evidence submitted to the Beveridge Committee was the very widespread expectation among witnesses that the enquiry was going to lead to radical even “Utopian” social change.’ See also Bew, P., Gibbon, P. and Patterson, H., The state in Northern Ireland (Manchester, 1979)Google Scholar, on the adjustments forced upon the Stormont government by the changes in welfare policy in the 1940s, especially chs. iii and IV.

9 The three proposals are outlined in Fisher's, R. A. review of Leonard Darwin, ‘The need for eugenic reform’, Eugenics Review, xviii (1926), 231–6, esp. 236.Google Scholar

10 See Searle, G. R., ‘Eugenics and politics in Britain, 1900–1914’, Science in History, no. 3 (Leyden, 1976), pp. 89–90.Google Scholar

11 Annual report of the Eugenics Society (1936–7), p. 5.

12 Its section on intelligence was written by Sir Godfrey H. Thomson (who quoted Cattell, R. B., The fight for our national intelligence (London, 1937)Google Scholar. R. A. Fisher, Cyril Burt, Dr J. A. Fraser Roberts and Dr E. O. Lewis (the chief researcher on the Wood Report) all gave evidence. See Papers of the royal commission on population (1950), v, H.M.S.O.

13 See Report of the royal commission on population (Parl. Papers 1948–9, xix, Cmd. 7695), p.156.

14 Ibid. ch. xvi. (The dissenting voice, Mrs M. C. Jay, believed the state should take on itself the burden of school fees although public school entrance should be decided by merit, ibid. pp. 234–7.)

15 Family allowances as a population policy (17 Oct. 1938), Political and Economic Planning Paper (P.E.P. Papers), British Library of Political Science, 4021/38/Population.BWS 1/1–1/3.

16 Ibid. p. 8.

17 See Charles, Enid, The twilight of parenthood (London, 1934)Google Scholar and Glass, D. V., The struggle for population (Oxford, 1936)Google Scholar. The Eugenics Society was involved in research into population between the wars, but they still retained the conviction that the major population problem facing the nation was differential fertility between the middle and working classes.

18 Family allowances as a population policy. P.E.P. Papers (see above n. 15), p. 12.

19 See especially the use made of the work of McGonigle, G. C. M. and Kirby, J., Poverty and public health (London, 1936)Google Scholar. This was published by Gollancz and distributed by the Left Book Club. Similarly Orr, John Boyd, Food, health and income (London, 1936)Google Scholar and sholme, Arthur New, The last thirty years in public health (London, 1936)Google Scholar. Works such as these were influential on opinion in supporting the belief that poverty itself was a major cause of ill health.

20 See ‘The scale of social insurance benefits and the problems of poverty’, by W. H. Beveridge, Inter-departmental committee on social insurance and allied services (16 January 1942), Beveridge papers, British Library of Political Science, S.I.C. (42) 3, file viii 28, p. 2.

21 See the introduction to the Report on the nutrition of miners and their families, Medical Research Council, special report series (M.R.C. spec. rep. ser.) 87 (1924), H.M.S.O.

22 D. Noel Paton, professor of Physiology at Glasgow University and Leonard Findlay, professor of Paediatrics, University of Glasgow, were particularly associated with the view that a major cause of poverty was inferior heredity. This conclusion was set out in Paton and Findlay, Poverty, nutrition and growth, studies of child life in the cities and rural districts of Scotland, M.R.C. spec. rep. ser. 101 (1926), H.M.S.O.

They sponsored other reports which reached similar conclusions. See E. P. Cathcart and A. M. T. Murray, A study in nutrition, M.R.C. spec. rep. ser. 151 (1931), H.M.S.O. Shepherd Dawson and J. C. McConn, Intelligence and disease, M.R.C. spec. rep. ser. 162 (1931), H.M.S.O. E. P. Cathcart and A. M. T. Murray, Studies in nutrition, M. R. C. spec. rep. ser. 165 (1935), H.M.S.O.

23 Paton and Findlay, Poverty, nutrition and growth, p. 305.

24 The Lancet (13 October 1928), p. 785.

25 Dr Harold Charles Corry Mann, O.B.E., M.D., M.R.C.P. was one of the group of investigators who contributed to an understanding of the relationship between diet and disease between the wars. He also showed considerable flair for social as well as scientific investigation. Corry Mann did two investigations for the M.R.C. The first, begun independently 1906–15, was resumed in 1919 under the direction of the M.R.C. This investigation was Rickets, the relative importance of environment and diet, M.R.C. spec. rep. ser. 68 (1922), H.M.S.O. The second more famous, Diets for boys during school age, published in 1926, established the precise nutritional value of milk. According to his obituary, ‘ Corry Mann was truly a pioneer, for he set the pattern for the conduct of investigations designed to test the practical value of foods or single nutrients, and few of the reports published since his appeared in 1926 have failed to quote the Corry Mann experiments,’ BMJ (29 April 1961), pp. 1257–8. Corry Mann was subsequently consultant to the Ministry of Health and further unpublished investigations he made contributed to the planning of wartime food policy 1939–45. Corry Mann's work was widely quoted in policy documents on nutrition between the wars. See Report of the consultative committee of the board of education. The primary school (1931), appendix II, and memorandum on food policy (P.E.P. Papers), 4383/34/Res. ( n October 1934).

26 Corry Mann, Rickets, p. 52.

27 ‘Note of the quarter’, Eugenics Review, xx (April 1929), 76–7.

28 The Eugenics Society referred to work sponsored by them by E. J. Lidbetter on pauperism and heredity. See Lidbetter, E. J., ‘Pauperism and heredity’, Eugenics Review, xiv (Apr. 1922), 152–63Google Scholar; also Lidbetter, E. J., Heredity and the social problem group (London, 1933)Google Scholar. They claimed through this and other work to have anticipated the Wood Report's analysis of the social problem group. They also used the Wood Report as a stimulus to furtherstudy. For details of their projects in this area see B. Mallet,’ The social problem group’,Eugenics Review, xxiii (Oct. 1931), 203–6. Among these studies were those leading to D. Caradog Jones's studies of Merseyside. See Caradogjones, D.. ‘Differential class fertility’, Eugenics Review, xxiv (1932), 175–90Google Scholar. Jones, D. Caradog,‘Eugenic aspects of the Merseyside survey’, Eugenics Review, xxviii (July 1936), 103–13Google Scholar. Cattell, R. B., The fight for national intelligence (London, 1938)Google Scholar. Blacker, C. P. (ed.), A social problem group? (Oxford, 1937).Google Scholar

29 Report of the mental deficiency committee, 1929 (Wood Report ), H M S O.

30 ‘ The science of eugenics is doing invaluable service in focussing scientific thought and public opinion upon the racial, social and economic problems that the subnormal group presents to every civilised nation. The prevention of mental deficiency is a problem where solution depends largely on the progress made by this science.’ Wood Report, p. 82.

31 Ibid. p. 83.

32 The Eugenics Society campaigned vigorously for sterilization both before and after the Wood Report. The departmental committee on sterilization (Parl. Papers, xv, 1934, Cmd. 4485), p. 611, which was appointed by the Ministry of Health on 9 June 1932 and which reported in 1934 (Brock Report) was something of a compromise. The society, before the final report, helped sponsor a sterilization bill put before parliament by A. G. Church, 21 July 1931 which failed. On 5 July 1932 a committee of 20 M.P.s to draft a further sterilization bill was headed by Sir Basil Peto and Wing-Commander James. James and Church were members of the Eugenics Society.

33 Tredgold, A. F. in Mental deficiency (London, 1937, 6th edn), p. 515Google Scholar made these estimates of the increase in institutionalization of mental defectives between (1 Jan. 1926) and 1 Jan. 1936: in institutions (20,297), 40,256; under guardianship or notified (785), 3,645; under statutory supervision (15,733), 34.840; totals (38,815), 78,741. Tredgold (op. cit. p. 154) believed that one reason for the increase was that the mental deficiency acts had ‘been administered with increasing vigour’.

34 The British Medical Journal (BMJ) clashed with the Eugenics Society over sterilization in 1928 before the Wood Report came out. See BMJ (21 Apr. 1928), p. 680. The BMJ was attacked for its remarks in the Eugenics Review, xx (April 1928), 76.

35 BMJ (5 July 1930), p. 26.

36 Ibid. (27 Apr. 1929), p. 109.

37 Wood Report, p. 84.

38 Therefore, Sir Henry argued, the process of eradication of mental defectiveness by sterilization would be protracted and uncertain. Address to the British Medical Council reported in the BMJ (18 Mar. 1933), p. 483. This point had also been made by the geneticist R. C. Punnett, see ‘The elimination of mental defect’ Eugenics Review, xvi (Apr. 1926), 114–16.Google Scholar

39 See L. S. Penrose, A clinical and genetic study of1,280 cases of mental defect, M.R.C. spec. rep. ser. 229 (1938), H.M.S.O. (Colchester survey). Someof the conditions designated as secondary amentia - hence non-inheritable - in Tredgold, Mental deficiency (London, 1929, 5th edn), pp. 243–92Google Scholar such as hydrocephaly and gargoylism appear in Penrose, The biology of mental defect (London, 1972, 4th revised edn), p. 192 and pp. 164–6Google Scholar as much more complex and in some cases as geneticially determined conditions.

40 BMJ (22 Sept. 1934), p. 560.

41 Ibid. 27 Apr. 1929, p. 108.

42 Ibid. p. 108.

43 Wood Report, pp. 29–31.

44 Penrose, Mental defect, pp. 6–7.

45 BMJ ( u Aug. 1934), p. 279.

46 Notes of the quarter, Eugenics Review, xx (Apr. 1928), p. 76.Google Scholar

47 Penrose, Mental defect, pp. 173–4.

48 On Beveridge and his attitude to the’ residuum’ see Jose Harris, ch. vi. Harris also points out that initially the Depression of 1929–31 did not stimulate any radical conclusions in Beveridge, see ch. xiv. He was enough of a traditional political economist to believe that welfare reform must await national recovery. His interest in advancing comprehensive welfare was rekindled by contact with the Cambridge Group of economists in the late thirties (Joan Robinson, E. F. Schumacher, Nicholas Kaldor) who introduced him to Keynesian ideas (ibid. p. 435). Added to this was the wave of popular sentiment in favour of reform 1939–43. For the disappointment of some liberals with the outcome of these reforms see Clarke, Peter, Liberals and social democrats (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 284–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 Huxley to H. G. Wells, 10 February 1930. Quoted in Huxley, J. S., Memories, 1 (London, 1970, 2nd edn), 168–9.Google Scholar

50 The eugenics movement were caught in an embarrassing position when, contrary to their forecasts of a decline in national intelligence, evidence emerged in the Royal commission on population (1949), from a survey of Scottish schoolchildren, of a slight increase in I.Q. over a generation. Haldane was also embarrassed by this information. ‘ During the five years which have elapsed since I commented on Professor Thomson's memorandum I have devoted a good deal of work to the problem of selection. I am now in complete disagreement with his conclusions on the effect of differential fertility.’ Papers of the royal commission on population 1949, v (1950), 43. For the background to Haldane's views see Jones, G., ‘British scientists, Lysenko and the cold war’, Economy and Society, viii, 1, 26–58.Google Scholar

51 See, for example, the comments of R. A. Fisher: ‘It is a fact and I think an important fact that we have at the moment and for the next few years a Government with power and authority to act on its convictions, pledged to diagnose and remedy at their source, the causes of national weakness... the easy optimism which assumes that we can enjoy prosperity without earning it is practically extinct.’ (‘Family allowances’, Eugenics Review, xxiv (July 1932, 87.)

52 A figure representative of this left-wing trend was François Lafitte, Havelock Ellis's stepson, who in 1938 at the age of twenty-four was appointed by a joint committe of Political and Economic Planning and the Eugenics Society to act as secretary to the Population Policies of the P.E.P. Committee. Lafitte's memoranda to the committee were infused with a radicalism surprising to many of them. The Eugenics Society by allying itself with P.E.P., which was more truly representative of’middle opinion’, was forced to accommodate itself to this. Even so the final report preserved some of the basic eugenic premises and took the hard edge off the social criticism present in Lafitte's early memoranda. See the final report ‘Population policy’, Planning, xiv, 281 (30 Apr. 1948), 311–22.Google Scholar