Galton archive now online
UCL Special Collections, in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust, have announced the launch of a digitised archive of papers by the Victorian scientist, Sir Francis Galton. Containing a substantial number of biographical notes and images spanning several generations, the digitised collection also includes a number of letters between Galton and notable Victorian scientists, travellers, and politicians including his cousin Charles Darwin and Joseph Hooker. The comprehensive collection has been added to the Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics project, which aims to provide a documentary record of modern genetics, not only from a scientific perspective, but also from political, economic, technological, social, cultural and personal viewpoints. UCL's Galton Archive comprises an extensive collection of Galton's personal papers, scientific research and correspondence, bequeathed to UCL on his death in 1911. Known primarily for his work on heredity and eugenics, Galton also made significant contributions to the fields of statistics, meteorology, criminology and crime science. Katy Makin (UCL Library Services), the Project Archivist, said: "Galton is perhaps best known for his studies into heredity, more specifically as the 'father' of eugenics. It is his eugenic ideas, and especially their appropriation in the 20th century, that colour perceptions of Galton and make writing about him a challenge.
