Sir Francis Galton

Francis Galton was born at the Larches near Sparbrook, Birmingham on February 16, 1822 and died in 1911. He is best known for his pioneering work on human intelligence. He also earned the reputation of being a great explorer and anthropologist and was elevated to Knighthood in 1909.

During his childhood, as the youngest of his family, he had a strong connection with his twelve-year-older sister, Adele, who had a spinal injury and was obliged to lie in bed for most of the time (Forrest, 1974). She became Galton's first educator, and strongly believed that he was some sort of child prodigy. Records exist of his early performances. By the age of 2 ? he could a little book and few months later sign his name (Pearson, 1914).

At the age of five Galton joined the local school and was disappointed when he discovered that none of his friends knew about the Iliad or Marmion. Mrs. French, the schoolteacher, was always impressed by the young gentleman, who was "always to be found studying the abstruse sciences" (Galton, 1908). When he was 8 years old, his father sent him to Boulogne to study French. At the age of 14 he joined the King's Edward School in Birmingham and only after a year he was accepted as a pupil at Birmingham General Hospital. He left school early at the age of 16.

Galton's life has attracted the attention of major psychologists. For example Lewis Terman wrote a paper in attempt to estimate Galton's I. Q. He believed that Galton's performance was so exceptional as to be termed that of a genius (Forrest, 1974).

Galton's career bore remarkable similarities to that of his cousin Charles Darwin. Like Darwin, Galton attended Cambridge, but did not do exceptionally well. He spent a period of traveling before settling down to scientific work. And like Darwin, Galton had caught hold of the controversial ideas, which he realized could only be adequately proved by careful scientific investigation (Forrest, 1995). Galton placed an extremely high value upon science. Galton attracted the notice of Victorian scientific circles with tan account of an exploration of South-West Africa, which he had undertaken between 1850 and 1852 (Forrest, 1974). In 1853 he was in 1853 elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and, three years later, of the Royal Society.

Galton's interest in mathematics and techniques of measurement led him to concentrate within the field of geography on mapping and meteorological observations, and it was here that he made his first contribution to science. It was some years before the technical printing difficulties were to be overcome and Galton's weather map could first appear in The Times in 1875 (Forrest, 1974).

Throughout his life he continued to be active in the affairs of Royal Geographical Society and Meteorological Council, although his participation remained strictly administrative. During his forties, his research began to focus on heredity, a change which he ascribed to Darwin's influence "I was encouraged by the new views to pursue many inquiries that had long interested me, and which clustered around the central topics of Heredity" (Galton, 1908:288). He collected data on eminent men in England and summarized his findings in English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture. His views on innate and developmental influences on development determined his position as a nativist. Galton placed great emphasis on statistical measurements of these hereditary predispositions as a way of predicting and improving the population, and was the founder of a new movement in science called Eugenics. He promoted Eugenics enthusiastically and left part of his wealth to endow a chair of Eugenics in the University of London (Hothersall, 1995). He died in 1911.