Professor Joe Cain

University College London (UCL) Wilkins Building at night | ProfJoeCain

Terms of Reference for UCL’s Eugenics Inquiry

The “Inquiry into the History of Eugenics at UCL,” also referred to as the “Eugenics Inquiry,” and the “Eugenics Investigation” operated at University College London (UCL) between November 2018 and February 2020. It was a university […]

UCL Galton Lecture Theatre - plaque on door - ProfJoeCain

Time Has Run Out for Francis Galton at UCL

Francis Galton was a bad piece of work. His racist, nativist, supremacist views are antithetical to UCL’s vision and values. He is no role model for me. He should be no role model for you. […]

Eugenics Poster - Only Healthy Seed Must Be Sown

American Universities Teaching Eugenics in 1914

In 1914, Journal of Heredity published a directory of US colleges and universities with eugenics courses. This is not an exhaustive list, but it gives a good indication of the range of institutions which supported […]

Karl Pearson praised Hitler and Nazi Race Hygiene

Did Professor Karl Pearson praise Hitler and Nazi ‘race hygiene’ programmes? Yes, he did. He did this in 1934, at a dinner to mark his retirement the previous year from University College London (UCL). Pearson […]

HPSC0070 Eugenics in Science and Culture

Eugenics combined science and politics to create social policies intent on “improving the stock” of some human groups at the expense of others. This module investigates eugenics as a history of science and technology operating […]

Edward Turner, First Professor of Chemistry at UCL - ProfJoeCain

Edward Turner was a Creole. So what?

A historian colleague of mine asked if I knew anything about the genealogy of UCL’s first Professor of Chemistry, Edward Turner (1796-1837). My colleague said he had heard a report that Turner was mixed race, […]

Image from Cover - Farrall 2019 English Eugenics Movement 9781787510012

Farrall (1969) Examines History of Eugenics at UCL

In the course of my own research into activities that led to something like a “Department of Eugenics” at University College London (UCL) , I returned over and again to one work: “The origins and […]

Profesor Karl Pearson at desk in Francis Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics

Mental Deficiency Act 1913 (UK) and Karl Pearson’s Absence

I was reading Angelique Richardson’s 2014 TLS piece on the history of the Mental Deficiency Act 1913 (UK), which came into effect 1914 and was repealed in 1968. It inspired me to review that Act […]

Eugenics Money at UCL from Francis Galton

Francis Galton’s Will left money to University of London “for establishment and endowment of a Professorship” related to eugenics. This blog gives the text of the original donation.

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Physiological Genetics: Sewall Wright Taught Me, volume 3. Edited by Joe Cain. ISBN 9781906267049

Physiological Genetics: Sewall Wright Taught Me, volume 3 | EGP

Sewall Wright taught throughout his long career. Between 1926-1955, he worked at the University of Chicago. During this time, he developed and taught both undergraduate and graduate courses. By the early 1930s, Wright’s teaching load […]