He concluded that superior intelligence and abilities were inherited with an efficiency of about 20% among primary relatives in these families. Using information from biographical dictionaries and alumni records at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Galton investigated the families of notable British judges and statesmen. His first observations were published in Macmillan's Magazine (1865), and his complete thesis was presented in Hereditary Genius (1869). His interest in the habitability of "noble" traits sprang at least partly from the qualities he saw in his own extended Galton-Darwin-Wedgwood family. Galton's eugenics work occupied the second half of his life. His work was recognized by a prestigious Founder's Medal from the Royal Geographical Society and election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1856. After an undistinguished academic career at King's College and Cambridge, his travelogue of a two-year expedition to Tropical South Africa (1853), followed by his advice on travel to wild places, Art of Travel (1855), secured his reputation as a naturalist. Galton exhibited his curious intellectual ability early in life - he could read by the age of three, knew the Iliad and Odyssey by heart at age six, and wrote his own will at age eight. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was a founder of the Lunar Society, whose membership included many of the great scientific thinkers of his day, including Josiah Wedgwood, James Watt, and Joseph Priestly. Through his mother's line, he was a cousin to Charles Darwin and related by marriage to the notable Wedgwood pottery family. EugenicsArchive Francis Galton return to Themes listįrancis Galton was born, in 1822, into a wealthy and influential English family.
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