What role did UCL biometrician and eugenicist Karl Pearson have in passage of this Act? Reading Angelique Richardson’s 2014 TLS piece on the Mental Deficiency Act (UK), effective 1914 repealed 1968, sparked me into condensing some research on that Act and possible involvement by Karl Pearson in its development and passage. We know a lot about the Mental Deficiency Act (UK). Wikipedia offers a quick…
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.
In October 2014, I proposed to UCL that it change the name of a lecture theatre named for Francis Galton. That letter is here.
George Gaylord Simpson (1902-1984) was a leader in twentieth century vertebrate palaeontology, and he contributed to making the American Museum of Natural History a powerhouse in the field. In 1959, Simpson left his job at the museum in a bitter dispute with its management. Simpson never published a rationale for his resignation, but he secretly wrote one. After his first day unemployed, Simpson penned a…
Today, Euston Grove, London NW1 is little more than a roundabout for buses outside Euston Rail Station. Its most noticable feature is Reginald Wynn Owen’s arresting memorial to railway men and women lost in war. One hundred and fifty years ago, Euston Grove was a bustling, fast-growing London street – home to the country’s first metropolitan rail station and home to one of Britain’s most important…
John Cooke Bourne’s lithograph of Euston Arch and the neo-classical screen in from of the Euston Grove terminus for the railway was published among his Drawings of the London and Birmingham Railway (1839) (British Library collection). This item also was sold as hand-coloured prints and much copied. Euston Arch, Euston Grove and neo-Classical screen
The annual Robert Grant Memorial Lecture is held in honour of Professor Robert Edmond Grant (born 11 November 1793 in Edinburgh; died 23 August 1874 at home, 2 Euston Grove, more). Grant was a zoologist, an expert on comparative anatomy, an evolutionist, and a political radical. This annual lecture is organised by UCL Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy), with support from several UCL units, including…
Wallis’s Guide for Strangers through London was an essential tool for visitors to London. Successive editions (1813, 1821, 1826, 1841) allow the historian to trace the growth of many parts of the city, including the area north of the Paddington to Islington Road. The area named “Euston Square” came into being between the 1813 and 1821 editions. The Euston Grove terminus for the London and Birmingham…
Book on UCL Grant Museum of Zoology UCL’s Grant Museum of Zoology moved to The Thomas Lewis Room in UCL’s Rockefeller Building in 2011. This book answers popular historical questions about the room, the building, and the wider university and medical school environment. The aim is to investigate basic historical questions visitors have had about the space, some of the architectural details, and the building’s…
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (FGS, FLS) was the sculptor who created the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs. Specifically, he created over thirty statues of prehistoric animals for the Crystal Palace and Park (Sydenham), which opened in June 1854. The statues included dinosaurs (Iguanodon, Megalosaurus, and Hylaeosaurus), Mesozoic marine reptiles (Plesiosaurus, Ichthyosaurus, and Mosasaurus), other extinct reptiles (Dicynodon and Labyrinthdon), and mammals from the Tertiary Period (Anoplotherium and Palaeotherium) and…