History of Science Archives | Page 5 of 8

“Mibiri Creek, Demerara River | Mr Edmonstone’s Wood Cutting Establishment” from Thomas Staunton St. Clair, A Residence in the West Indies and America (London, 1834), vol. 2, facing p. 187.

John Edmonstone: References from Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin made reference to many people in his writings. Most were correspondents who sent him pieces of useful information. Others were writers whose work he used, promoted, or criticised. In his 1871 book, Descent […]

Science of the Great Exhibition, by Robert Hunt (1851)

London in 1851 was site of the Great Exhibition. Formally, it was titled, “The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations“. The press focused attention on the giant glass house containing the […]

Ronald Aylmer Fisher was a eugenicist. This image from 1943 courtesy National Portrait Gallery

What’s Wrong With Fisher? He Was A Eugenicist

UCL Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment has taken the decision to de-name the R A Fisher Centre for Computational Biology owing to Fisher’s life-long commitment to eugenics research and campaigning. It is now the UCL Centre for […]

Laughlin, Harry H. 1923. The Second International Exhibition of Eugenics Held September 22 to October 22, 1921, in Connection with the Second International Congress of Eugenics in the American Museum of Natural History, New York (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins Company), page 15.

Famous Eugenics Tree Image Source Located

The “eugenics tree” is one of the most reprinted images associated with the history and legacy of eugenics. The source is Laughlin (1923: 15, figure 3). It was created for the Second International Congress of […]

T.T. Martin Headquarters, Anti-Evolution League at 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial

Scopes Monkey Trial 1925: Innes Lecture 2020

For the Innes Lecture 2020, I discussed the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. Owing to COVID-related public health restrictions, we moved this lecture online. Details on access now are available through the John Innes Centre. The […]

Scopes Monkey Trial 1925. William Jennings Bryan addressing the jury

Scopes Monkey Trial 1925 – Complete Trial Transcripts

Shortly after the conclusion of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial – officially, the case of State of Tennessee versus John Thomas Scopes, the National Book Company (Cincinnati, Ohio) published transcripts of the trial. Under the […]

JBS lecturing at University College, University of London | Haldane's Mathematical Theory of Natural and Artificial Selection (photograph colourised)

JBS Haldane’s Mathematical Theory of Natural and Artificial Selection (1924-1934)

JBS Haldane wrote his “Mathematical Theory of Natural and Artificial Selection,” as a series of ten papers between 1924 and 1934. These were published across four journal titles, three of which were published by Cambridge Philosophical […]

Vernon Kellogg Headquarters Nights 9781906267322 Euston Grove Press | soldiers in the trenches during World War 1

Darwinism or Militarism? Headquarters Nights (Vernon Kellogg) | EGP

Headquarters Nights was the 1917 account by Vernon Kellogg of conversations and experiences at the headquarters of the German Army in France and Belgium during World War 1, following one man’s transformation from an opponent of all wars […]

Protest by University of London medical students at Brown Dog Statue in Battersea Park (from Ford 1908)

Eyewitness to the Brown Dog Affair

Edward K. Ford was an eyewitness to history. In 1907, London medical students protested over a statue raised to a little brown dog. Bonfires burned late into the night. Large groups marched through the streets […]

Number 88 Gower Street - location for the Eugenics Record Office 1904-1906 | At cover of Gower Street and Torrington Place, Bloomsbury, London, England, United Kingdom

Francis Galton’s Eugenics Record Office on Gower Street (ERO-Galton)

Francis Galton created a Eugenics Record Office (ERO-Galton) at 88 Gower Street, London, England, in 1904, while developing a scheme to create for himself some research capacity in this area. ERO-Galton operated until 1907, when […]

Professor Joe Cain

UCL Professor of History and Philosophy of Biology

History of Science