The Imperial Institute building, South Kensington
(demolished in 1967)
on what is now Imperial College Road.
near the Royal School of Mines building
which was completed in 1913. The Imperial
Institute later moved to Kensington High St
as the Commonwealth Institute, which has since
closed completely.
Conference held at Imperial Institute (University of London) South Kensington, July 24-30, 1912
The German Delegation was led by Ernst Rudin, and the Italian delegation by Corrado
Gini. Ronald Aylmer Fisher was a steward, having recently helped found the Cambridge Undergraduate
Eugenics Society with John Maynard Keynes, at the beginning of a highly accomplished career, which
was much tainted by Eugenics.
Ernst Rudin
Ernst Rüdin (19 April 1874 in St. Gallen – 22 October 1952) was a Swiss-born German psychiatrist, geneticist, eugenicist and Nazi. Rising to prominence under Emil Kraepelin and assuming his directorship at what is now called the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich. While he has been credited as a pioneer of psychiatric inheritance studies, he also argued for, designed, justified and funded the mass sterilization and clinical killing of adults and children.
Dr. Eugen Fischer
Attended the first and the ninth congress
Responsible for medical experiments on Namibian tribes (1904-8)
and later on Jewish people in Nazi Germany.
Attended several of these congresses e.g. ninth congress ( 1932, in Dorset and
Wiltshire),
A (1932) conference oil race crossing, with Dr. Alfred Ploetz in the chair, received contributions from Dr. Mjöen, Prof. C. G. Seligman, Dr. van Herwerden, Prof. Ruggles Gates, Dr. C. B. Davenport, and Prof. Eugen Fischer. At another session international programmes for research in racial psychiatry were presented by Prof. Rüdin, and in racial psychology by Prof. Seligman.
“western civilization was in danger of collapse, since we were preserving the weak and ‘genetically undesirable’ and allowing them to breed at an alarming rate…Indeed the pauper pedigrees presented at the Congress…proved conclusively that the poor and the feebleminded were highly fecund and would one day inherit the earth unless wise men intervened with a programme of genetic measures” (Chitty, 2007, p. 38).
Background[edit]
Assessing the work of Charles Darwin, and pondering the experience of animal breeders and horticulturists, Francis Galton wondered if the human genetic make-up could be improved: “The question was then forced upon me - Could not the race of men be similarly improved? Could not the undesirables be got rid of and the desirables multiplied?”[1] This concept of eugenics - a term he introduced - soon won many adherents, notably in North America and England. First practical steps were taken in the United States of America. The government under Theodore Roosevelt created a national Heredity Commission that was charged to investigate the genetic heritage of the country and to “(encourage) the increase of families of good blood and (discourage) the vicious elements in the cross-bred American civilization”.[2] Charles Davenport supported by the Carnegie Institution established the Eugenics Record Office. Further significant funding for the eugenics movement came from E. H. Harriman and Vernon Kellogg. In an effort to eradicate unfit offspring sterilization laws were passed, the first one in Indiana (1907), then in other states, many strictly for eugenic reasons, "to better the race," allowing for compulsory sterilization. Other eugenic laws limited the right to marry.[2]
The First International Eugenics Congress (1912)[edit]
The First International Eugenics Congress took place in London on July 24–29, 1912. It was organized by the British Eugenics Education Society and dedicated to Galton who had died the year prior.[2] Major Leonard Darwin, the son of Charles Darwin, was presiding. The five-day meeting saw about 400 delegates at the Hotel Cecil in London.[3] Luminaries included Winston Churchill, First Lord of the British Admiralty and Lord Alverstone, the Chief Justice, Arthur Balfour, as well as the ambassadors of Norway, Greece, and France. In his opening address Darwin indicated that the introduction of principles of better breeding procedures for humans would require moral courage. The American exhibit was sponsored by the American Breeders' Association and demonstrated the incidence of hereditary defects in human pedigrees. A report by Bleeker van Wagenen presented information about American sterilization laws and propagated compulsory sterilization as the best method to cut off “defective germ-plasm”. In the final address, Major Darwin extolled eugenics as the practical application of the principle of evolution.[2][4]
Conference held at Imperial Institute (University of London) South Kensington, July 24-30, 1912
ARCHIVE (Conference Programme)
The First International Eugenics Congress was held at the University of London, July 24th to 30th, 1912, and was organised by the Eugenics Education Society. Major Leonard Darwin was the president of the society and chair of the organising committee. The Congress published its proceedings. Volume 1 published papers communicated at the Congress. Volume 2 was a record of proceedings, including notes on discussions. It also contained several papers not included in volume 1. Volume 2 also is available. The Congress also organised an exhibition, with a catalogue. Edgar Schuster published a review of the congress in Eugenics Review (1912, vol 4(3), pp. 223-256).
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