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. Members came predominately from the professional class and included eminent scientists such as Francis Galton. The Society engaged in advocacy and research to further their eugenic goals, and members participated in activities such as lobbying Parliament, organizing lectures, and producing propaganda. It became the Eugenics Society in 1924 (often referred to as the British Eugenics Society to distinguish it from others). From 1909 to 1968 it published The Eugenics Review, a scientific journal dedicated to eugenics. Membership reached its peak during the 1930s.
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.
Contents
History
Creation of the Eugenics Education Society
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. She was introduced to the lawyer Montague Crackanthorpe, who would become the second president of the EES, by James Slaughter, the Secretary of the Sociological Society. Crackanthorpe introduced Gotto to Galton, the statistician who coined the term "eugenics." 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. The EES was located in Eccleston Square, London.The goals of Eugenics Education Society, as stated in first issue of the Eugenics Review were:
“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.
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.
To further Eugenic Teaching at home, in the schools, and elsewhere."
Activities
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.
Shortly after the Society was founded, members protested the closing of London institutions housing alcoholic women. A resolution was drafted proposing that alcoholics be segregated to prevent their reproduction, as the EES held the eugenic belief that alcoholism was heritable. This resolution proved unsuccessful in Parliament in 1913.
In 1910, the Society's Committee on Poor Law Reform rebutted both the Majority and Minority Reports of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, declaring their belief that poverty was rooted in the genetic deficiencies of the working class. This view was published in a special Poor Law issue of the Eugenics Review. The Committee suggested that paupers be detained in workhouses, under the authority of the Poor Law Guardians, to prevent their breeding. The same year, E. J. Lidbetter, EES member and former employee of the Poor Law Authority in London, attempted to prove the hereditary nature of poverty by compiling and studying the pedigrees of impoverished families.
In 1912, President Leonard Darwin assembled a Research Committee to standardize the format and symbols used in pedigree studies. The members of the Committee were Edgar Schuster, Alexander M. Carr-Saunders, E. J. Lidbetter, Major Greenwood, Sybil Gotto, and A. F. Tredgold. The standardized pedigree they produced was published in the Eugenics Review and later adopted by Charles Davenport's Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor in the United States.
In 1912, a group of physicians from the EES met unsuccessfully with the President of the Local Government Board to advocate for the institutionalization of those infected with venereal disease. The Society’s interest in venereal disease continued during WWI, when the Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases was formed with the inclusion of members of the EES.
In 1916, EES President Leonard Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, published a pamphlet entitled “Quality not Quantity,” encouraging members of the professional class to have more children. Darwin proposed a tax rebate for middle-class families in 1917, but the resolution was unsuccessful in Parliament. In 1919, Darwin stated his belief that fertility was inversely proportional to economic class before the Royal Commission on Income Tax. He feared the falling birth rate of the middle-class would result in a “national danger.” The Eugenics Education Society was renamed the Eugenics Society in 1924 to emphasize its commitment to scientific research extending beyond the role of public education.
Contemporary position on eugenics
As of 2023, the website of the Adelphi Genetics Forum stated that "The Adelphi Genetics Forum rejects outright the theoretical basis and practice of coercive eugenics, which it regards as having no place in modern life." 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 (equivalent to £7,000,000 in 2025). 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. Members of the Society were also involved in the National Association for the Care and Protection of the Feeble-minded, the Society for Inebrity, the Charity Organisation Society, and the Moral Education League. The British eugenics movement was a predominantly middle class and professional class phenomenon. Most members of the EES were educated and prominent in their fields – at one point all members were listed in professional directories., Two-thirds of the members were scientists, and the 1914 Council of the EES was dominated by professors and physicians. Women constituted a significant portion of the Society’s members, exceeding 50% in 1913 and 40% in 1937. 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.
The Society underwent considerable growth in its early years. By 1911, the London headquarters was supplemented by branches in Cambridge, "Oxford, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Southampton, Glasgow, and Belfast," as well as abroad in "Australia and New Zealand". The Society found support in leading academic institutions. Statistician R. A. Fisher was a founding member of the Cambridge University Branch, where Leonard Darwin, Reginald Punnett, and Reverend Inge lectured about the eugenic dangers a fertile working class posed to the educated middle class.
In Australia, the Eugenics Education Society of New South Wales was formed in 1912 as a formal affiliate of the British body, with Richard Arthur as president and John Eldridge as secretary. Eldridge was the driving force behind the organisation, which fell into abeyance in 1922 after he became disaffected with the British organisation's hardline policies. By 1914 there were reportedly four EES branches in New Zealand, located in Christchurch, Dunedin, Timaru and Wellington, but they were short-lived. Other eugenics organisations in Australia and New Zealand did not formally affiliate with the EES.
Collections
The archive of the Adelphi Genetics Forum is held at the Wellcome Collection, London. The collection includes correspondence, governance papers, and administrative files. The archive also contains material relating to Marie Stopes, who left the Forum her birth control clinic and some books in her will.