Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

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From Olympia to Hyde Park: British anti-fascism in the summer of 1934
by Dr. Evan Smith
Research Fellow in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University, South Australia
September 9, 2018

I met Sylvia Scaffardi, who was one of the people who risked her life to protest Moseley.[sic] She went on to found the National Council for Civil Liberties. I don't think she would have supported 'No Platform' policies. She fought for free speech. (Her papers are collected at Hull U)

-- by JamesHeartfield@JamesHeartfield, Sep 9, 2018

On 9 September 1934, a BUF [British Union of Fascists] rally at Hyde Park was opposed by a massive anti-fascist counter-demonstration, coming a few months after anti-fascists attempted to disrupt a BUF rally at Olympia and after a summer of similar confrontations across a number of metropolitan areas in England. This post is based on an early chapter from my book project on the history of no platform, to be published by Routledge’s Fascism and Far Right series.


Daily Worker: Workers of All Lands, Unite!
Organ of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Section of Communist International
Tuesday, September 11, 1934
Drowning The Blackshirts In a Sea of Organised Working-Class Activity

The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was formed by Oswald Mosley in late 1932 and it grew exponentially in its first years, with nearly 50,000 members allegedly joining.[1] Enjoying support from Lord Rothmere’s Daily Mail and other sections of the Conservative right, Mosley attempted to establish the BUF through a series of public meetings, demonstrating its supposed mass support at rallies, inspired by Mussolini and Hitler. There were frequent mobilisations by anti-fascists against these public meetings and rallies in the early years of the BUF, culminating in two events in 1934 that solidified the militant anti-fascist approach of physical confrontation and also revealed the violent nature of the BUF.

Robert Skidelsky suggested ‘[f]or both fascists and anti-fascists Olympia was the epic battle of the 1930s’, explaining:

Fascists looked back with satisfaction on the ‘beating’ they had given the ‘Reds’ and claimed that it had restored ‘free speech’ in Britain. Anti-fascists regarded it as the moment when they unambiguously exposed the brutal face of fascism and condemned it thereafter in the eyes of all decent Englishmen.[2]

Olympia was to be a demonstration of the strength of the British Union of Fascists. As mentioned above, its membership growth had been strong throughout its first 18 months. After several well-attended meetings at the Albert Hall, Mosley believed that a larger venue, such as that of Olympia Stadium, was necessary. Around 10,000 people filled the stadium, with anti-fascists (primarily members of the Communist Party) securing around 500 tickets. The Communist Party portrayed Olympia as a chance to build the anti-fascist movement and confront the growing BUF. Regarding threats made in the run up to the meeting by Mosley, the Daily Worker declared:

Already the Blackshirts have used provocative threats against the workers…

They have made such threats at many meetings, but [past] events have shown that all their thuggish methods were unable to prevent the workers having their say. To-night will again prove this rule…

[T]he workers’ counter-section will cause them to tremble. All roads lead to Olympia to-night.[3]

A counter-demonstration by anti-fascists was held outside the venue, while anti-fascists heckled the speakers, including Mosley, and sought to disrupt the meeting. These disruptions were staggered over the evening, so to ensure the maximum disruptive effect. As The Times reported the following day, ‘The campaign of interruption had been well planned so that it should affect every part of the meeting in the course of the evening’.[4]

BUF bodyguards violently ejected the anti-fascist protestors, with The Times stating the constant interruptions were ‘countered with similar thoroughness and with a uniformity of treatment which suggested a prescribed technique of violence’.[5]The newspaper continued:

Stewards at once made for the offenders. If they resisted ejection the incident at once became an affair of fisticuffs and, if the victim remained standing at the end of his resistance he was seized ju-jitsu fashion and dragged out. Quite a number were borne out limp bodies after the frays.[6]

Once ejected, there were a number of arrests of anti-fascists outside the venue, where further violence was meted out by the police. The Daily Worker reported that outside Olympia, ‘seething crowds of thousands of workers kept up a continual anti-Fascist uproar, despite the enormous special concentration of police forces which had been gathered… for the Blackshirts’ protection’.[7] The following day, the newspaper stated that 24 anti-fascists had been arrested, compared to one BUF supporter, claiming that this was ‘a striking fact, which [spoke] volumes’ about the differing treatment by the police towards the BUF and the CPGB.[8]

Mosley and the BUF complained about the tactics used by the anti-fascists, described as ‘highly organized groups of Reds’, to break up the public meeting. Quoted in The Times, Mosley claimed:

For over three weeks certain Communist and Socialist papers have published incitements to their readers to attack this meeting. The result was that a large Red mob gathered outside the hall for the purpose of intimidating those who entered, and very many of the audience were in fact jostled before they managed to enter the meeting at all.[9]

In the BUF press, the violence was blamed on the Communists, but the fascist response was also celebrated, with A.K. Chesterton declaring it a ‘fascist victory’ and the ‘Red Terror Smashed’.[10] On the other hand, the Communist Party also claimed a victory as Olympia, with the Daily Worker declaring the following day:

Terrific scenes were witnessed at Olympia last night, when the workers of London staged a mighty counter-demonstration to the Mosley Fascists. Mosley’s carefully-planned arrangements were turned into a complete fiasco.[11]

There was an outcry by some in the press and some politicians at the violence witnessed at Olympia, which has been documented by a number of scholars. For example, The Times quoted Conservative MP Geoffrey Lloyd as declaring, ‘I am not very sympathetic to Communists who try to break up meetings, but I am bound to say that I was appalled by the brutal conduct of the Fascists last night’.[12] Although a number argued that the tactics of the anti-fascist protestors was just as deplorable as the actions of the BUF stewards. The Times reported on debates in the House of Commons in the aftermath of Olympia, summarising that ‘members were about equally divided between unqualified condemnation of alleged Fascist brutality towards interrupters, and the feeling that allowances must be made for those who had been sorely provoked by Communists’.[13] Rajani Palme Dutt, a leading CPGB figure, wrote in his editorial for Labour Monthly that it was only because of the anti-fascist demonstrators that ‘the eyes of millions’ had been opened ‘to the real character of Fascism’.[14] Dutt proclaimed, ‘It is solely thanks to their stand that the present universal outcry against Fascism has developed, where before there was silence or indifference or amused toleration’.[15]

Scholars have debated whether the violence had a negative effect on the popularity of the BUF in 1934. David Renton has written that after Olympia, Lord Rothmere withdrew his support and that ‘BUF membership fell from 40,000 to 5,000 by the summer of 1935’.[16] Both Martin Pugh and Stephen Dorril have shown that some were put off by the violence on display at Olympia, but to some BUF supporters, the violent confrontations with the Communists solidified their dedication to Mosley.[17] The columns of the mainstream newspapers were filled with both expressions of horror at the violence and letters of praise for Mosley’s tactics. As Pugh has explained:

The truth is that while the violence alienated some people, it also added to the appeal of the BUF among the young and militant anti-Communists, with the result that the organisation experienced a major turnover of membership during 1934-35.[18]

Whether the violence turned people away from the BUF or attracted them to it, it was clear that violence was an inherent part of the BUF’s programme.

The violence meted out to anti-fascists who broke up the meeting at Olympia roused the anti-fascist movement. Dave Hann wrote, ‘[a]nti-fascists had certainly taken a beating at Olympia but their growing movement responded in force, with an increase in the number of BUF public appearances interrupted by anti-fascists and the number of people involved in anti-fascist activity.[19] By the latter months of 1934, the anti-fascist movement was confident of disrupting the BUF’s staged rallies and while expecting fascist violence and police intimidation, were also confident that popular sentiment (particularly amongst workers) was turning against Mosley.


Fascists at Olympia
Statements From:
The Injured,
Doctors Who Attended the Injured,
And From
Eyewitnesses, Including
Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd, M.P.
Mr. Gerald Barry
Mr. A.E. Coppard
Mr. A.J. Cummings
Mr. Aldous Huxley
The Very Rev. H.R.L. Sheppard
Miss Vera Brittain
Price 6d. net

After Olympia, there had been in-roads made by the Communist Party, the Independent Labour Party and some trade unions to form a broad anti-fascist front. The Communist Party, transitioning from the ideas of ‘social fascism’ and ‘Class Against Class’ of the previous half decade to the Popular Front against fascism and imperialism of the mid-to-late 1930s,[20] sought to lead the anti-fascist movement and work with the ILP, while criticising the timidness of the Labour Party and the TUC [Trade Union Congress].[21] As the General Council of the TUC debated its approach towards fascism in September 1934, the Daily Worker rhetorically asked, ‘who was it that had led the struggle in Olympia? Who was going to lead the struggle at Hyde Park on September 9?’[22]

On September 9, 1934, the BUF planned to hold a massive outdoor rally in Hyde Park, London. Taking the initiative seized at Olympia and continued through the summer of 1934, the CPGB and ILP attempted to mobilise a large contingent of workers and anti-fascists to Hyde Park. In the lead up to the event at Hyde Park, the CPGB warned:

Incitement to violence and the carrying out of the most bestial brutality is the stock-in-trade of the Blackshirt thugs of Mosley.

Olympia showed this plain for all to see.[23]

‘Should any violence take place on Sunday with regard to the great anti-Fascist demonstration’, the Daily Worker editorial declared, ‘then the responsibility for this rests on Mosley’s gang’. With the experience of Olympia in recent memory, the CPGB readied itself for potential violence, while at the same time, it warned against unnecessary violence. Jon Lawrence has suggested that this was part of the CPGB’s attempts to build the United Front with the ILP and a general shift away from violent confrontation by the Party leadership.[24] However it could also be argued that the CPGB (and the ILP) had learnt the lessons of Olympia and did not want individual anti-fascist protestors from suffering the same level of violence at the hand of BUF stewards or from the police. In the end, there was a massive turnout against the BUF at Hyde Park (between 60-150,000), with ‘much booing, heckling and ridicule from anti-fascists’, but ‘no serious disorder’.[25] Two days later, the Daily Worker reported that 18 people had been charged with a variety of offences after being arrested at the Hyde Park demonstration,[26] down from around 24 after Olympia, but with much larger number of anti-fascist demonstrators.

The Daily Worker called the demonstration at Hyde Park a ‘great blow against fascism’ and that Mosley’s rally had been ‘an utter fiasco’.[27] Despite the Labour Party and the TUC not supporting the demonstration and the police presence to maintain order (or to protect Mosley’s Blackshirts), the large crowd swamped the BUF rally ‘in a sea of organised working-class activity’.[28] On the other hand, the BUF claimed this was ‘the most remarkable display of the strength of Fascism ever seen in Britain’, but complained about the ‘intimidation of the opposition and the most definite attempts to create an impression that there would be considerable disorder in the Park’.[29] Even if the large crowds were not dedicated anti-fascists as the CPGB proclaimed, the BUF were vastly outnumbered and failed to win over those who had assembled in Hyde Park.

The momentum shifted away from the BUF after 1934, towards the anti-fascist movement, but also towards the National Government. As a number of a scholars have shown, the events of 1934 had led the National Government to debate laws regarding the policing of political meetings and public order, but shelved at the time. This was partly due to a reluctance by some politicians to curtail the freedom of political expression and partly because the BUF began to co-operate with the police.[30] Martin Pugh also suggests that the BUF avoided large urban cities where there was more likely to be an anti-fascist mobilisation, preferring to hold meetings across provincial England.[31] It was not until 1936, when Mosley and the BUF shifted tactics towards explicit anti-Semitism and trying to attract more working class supporters in the East End of London, that confrontations between anti-fascists, the police and the National Government reached a new crescendo with the ‘Battle of Cable Street’.


The mainstream media’s take on events at Hyde Park
THE DAILY EXPRESS
Monday, September 10, 1934
Moon Rises 8.8 a.m. Sets 7.26
P.C. Bull: "Stopping My Leave for This! -- Don't Let Me See You Here Again"

_______________

Notes:

[1]Michael A. Spurr, ‘“Living the Blackshirt Life”: Culture, Community and the British Union of Fascists, 1932-1940’, Contemporary European History, 12/3 (2003) p. 309.

[2]Robert Skidelsky, Oswald Mosley (London: Papermac, 1990) p. 365.

[3]Daily Worker, 7 June, 1934, p. 1.

[4]The Times, 8 June, 1934, p. 14.

[5]The Times, 8 June, 1934, p. 14.

[6]The Times, 8 June, 1934, p. 14.

[7]Daily Worker, 8 June, 1934, p. 1.

[8]Daily Worker, 9 June, 1934, p. 1.

[9] The Times, 9 June, 1934, p. 11.

[10]The Blackshirt, 15 June, 1934, p. 3.

[11]Daily Worker, 8 June, 1934, p. 1.

[12]The Times, 9 June, 1934, p. 11.

[13]The Times, 12 June, 1934, p. 14.

[14]R. Palme Dutt, ‘Notes of the Month’, Labour Monthly, July 1934, p. 390.

[15]Dutt, ‘Notes of the Month’, p. 390.

[16]David Renton, This Rough Game: Fascism and Anti-Fascism (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2001) p. 139.

[17] Stephen Dorril, Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism (London: Penguin 2007), pp. 298-301; Martin Pugh, ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’: Fascists and Fascism in Britain Between the Wars (London: Pimlico, 2005), pp. 156-163.

[18]Pugh, ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’, p. 162.

[19] Dave Hann, Physical Resistance: A Hundred Years of Anti-Fascism (Winchester: Zero Books, 2013) p. 46.

[20]See: Matthew Worley, Class Against Class: The Communist Party in Britain Between the Wars (London: IB Tauris, 2017).

[21] Nigel Copsey, Anti-Fascism in Britain (London: Routledge, 2017) pp. 21-24.

[22]Daily Worker, 5 September, 1934, p. 1.

[23]Daily Worker, 8 September, 1934, p. 2.

[24]Jon Lawrence, ‘Fascist Violence and the Politics of Public Order in Inter-War Britain: The Olympia Debate Revisited’, Historical Research, 76/192 (May 2003) pp. 259-261.

[25]Copsey, Anti-Fascism in Britain, p. 26.

[26]Daily Worker, 11 September, 1934, p. 1.

[27]Daily Worker, 10 September, 1934, p. 1.

[28]Daily Worker, 11 September, 1934, p. 1.

[29]The Blackshirt, 14 September, 1934, p. 1.

[30]Richard C. Thurlow, ‘The Straw that Broke the Camel’s Back: Public Order, Civil Liberties and the Battle of Cable Street’, in Tony Kushner & Nadia Valman, Remembering Cable Street: Fascism and Anti-Fascism in British Society (London: Valentine Mitchell, 2000) pp. 83-84; Lawrence, ‘Fascist Violence and the Politics of Public Order in Inter-War Britain’, p. 263,

[31]Pugh, ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’, pp. 169-170.

About the Author:

This is the blog/website of Dr Evan Smith. I am currently a Research Fellow in History in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University, South Australia. Between 2013 and 2015, I was a Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of International Studies at Flinders University. I have previously held positions at the Australian Institute of Criminology, the South Australian Office of Crime Statistics and Research and the Australian Taxation Office.

I have a PhD in History on the Communist Party of Great Britain and anti-racist politics in the post-war period from the Department of History at Flinders University. A revised version of my thesis was recently published as British Communism and the Politics of Race by Brill/Haymarket as part of its Historical Materialism series. I have published widely on the history of the left, anti-racism/anti-colonialism and national/border security in the Anglophone world.

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Papers of Sylvia Scaffardi c.1910- 2001 (nee Crowther-Smith)
by Hull History Centre

-- Liberty (advocacy group) [National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL)], by Wikipedia

Biographical background:

Sylvia Crowther-Smith was born on 20 January 1902 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Her father, Sydney James Crowther-Smith, emigrated from England to Brazil around 1888, where he met and married the daughter of wealthy Brazilian landowners in the late 1890s. By 1914, the family had moved to England, and settled in Eastbourne, in order for Sylvia and her sister Lydia to be educated in an English boarding school. After the First World War, Sylvia won a scholarship to Royal Holloway College, where she read English and became involved in the college dramatic society. Through the dramatic society, she met Lena Ashwell, a former West End star, and joined the Lena Ashwell Players. She then travelled the country working for touring companies and provincial repertory theatres. Sylvia first met Ronald Kidd, the founder of the National Council for Civil Liberties, when she joined a theatre company in Hertfordshire for a production of Ashley Duke's The man with a load of mischief (1926). Kidd had been engaged as stage manager and also played the part of the nobleman.

Ronald Hubert Kidd was born in 1889 into a medical family and grew up in Hampstead. He read science at University College London, but did not obtain a degree. He then lectured for the Workers' Educational Association and became involved in the campaign for women's suffrage. He was conscripted during the First World War, but never saw active service, being discharged for health reasons. He worked for a year as secretary to the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, before entering the civil service, firstly in the Ministry of Labour and then the Ministry of Pensions. However his career ended when he resigned in protest at the cuts in pensions for shell-shocked war veterans. Thereafter he found work as a freelance journalist, publicist, actor and stage director. By the time he met Sylvia, he was estranged from his wife Isadora and daughter Anne in Bristol, and living in lodgings in London.

Sylvia moved to London and began living with Kidd in the late 1920s, and entered his Bohemian and radical circles. She began to work as a freelance editor around this time, whilst Kidd opened the Punch and Judy bookshop at 43 Villiers Street. The origins of the National Council for Civil Liberties lie in the work which Kidd began in 1932 of observing the Hunger Marches as they arrived in London and reporting on the policing of the events. Sylvia joined him in this work (including at an anti-Nazi demonstration on 17 December 1933), and when the committee which formed the nucleus of the National Council for Civil Liberties first met on 22 February 1934, she was elected Honorary Treasurer.

In July 1934, she began to receive a salary for her work and the title of Assistant Secretary. Effectively, the organisation's first office was the room at no.3 Dansey Yard, off Shaftesbury Avenue, where Kidd and Crowther-Smith lodged. They ran the NCCL together in its early years, with Kidd as General Secretary, supported by an Executive Committee which included Vera Brittain, Claud Cockburn, Rev. Dick Shepherd, Harold Laski and Kingsley Martin, and by the lawyers DN Pritt and WH Thompson on the General Purposes Committee. However the volume of work put pressure on Kidd's health and from 1938 onwards, the number of office staff employed by the organisation had to be gradually increased. The issues dealt with by the NCCL during the 1930s and early 1940s included the Incitement to Disaffection Bill of 1934, the banning of 'nonflam' films, the operation of the Special Powers Acts in Northern Ireland, the rise of fascism and anti-semitism (especially the British Union of Fascists meeting at Olympia on 7 June 1934), the Public Order Act of 1936, political bias in the letting of public halls and by the police, the Harworth Colliery dispute of 1937, the case of Major Wilfred Foulston Vernon, the freedom of the press and the BBC, and the impact on civil liberties of the outbreak of war.

Sylvia resigned as Assistant Secretary of the NCCL in August 1941, at a time when her mother was dying of cancer and Kidd was suffering from a recurrence of heart problems. In November, Kidd had to give up the post of General Secretary and was made Director of NCCL instead, in an effort to reduce his workload. However he did not recover his health and died at the age of 53 on 12 May 1942.

A few months before Kidd's death, Sylvia entered the civil service, working in the Planning Division of the Ministry of Works on the White Paper on rural land utilisation in wartime. The Division was then formed into an independent Ministry of Town and Country Planning, where she remained until 1944 and her move into the wartime propaganda work of the Publications Division of the Ministry of Information. She was employed in the post-war Central Office of Information until 1952, when she was made redundant in a wave of cuts to temporary civil servant posts by the Conservative government. Using her redundancy money as security, she began to work as a freelance journalist. She also trained as a teacher and worked for a period in a secondary modern school in south London.

In 1958, at the age of 56, Sylvia married John Scaffardi and they lived together in Carshalton in Buckinghamshire. She was widowed in 1971. She wrote two autobiographical books, the first, an account of her work with Ronald Kidd during the 1930s, Fire under the carpet (Lawrence & Wishart, 1986) and the second, about her Brazilian childhood, Finding my way (Quartet Books, 1988). Sylvia died on 27 January 2001. She continued her association with and her support for the NCCL until her death.

Custodial History:

Donated by the Estate of Sylvia Scaffardi, via Liberty, 18 September 2001

Description:

This collection contains material gathered together by Scaffardi from several sources in the process of writing her autobiography, Fire Under the Carpet (Lawrence & Wishart, 1986); it includes papers of Ronald Kidd, research papers of Brian Cox and records of the National Council for Civil Liberties, as well as a range of publications. An artificial arrangement has been imposed on the collection, and there is a large amount of overlap between the sections.

National Council for Civil Liberties

This material complements, and in some instances duplicates, the main Liberty archive [U DCL]. There is a bound volume of early annual reports, dating from 1934 to 1957 [U DSF/1/1]; this is significant because there do not appear to be any annual reports before 1938 in the main archive [U DCL/73A]. The early minutes of the NCCL have been lost [a microfilm of minutes dating from 1944 onwards is the earliest survival at U DCL/102] and hence the few bundles in this collection which contain Executive Committee minutes from the 1930s and early 1940s, and some correspondence of Ronald Kidd as General Secretary, are valuable in piecing together the work of Kidd and other founder members [U DSF/1/7-9]. There are also examples of draft articles and speeches by Kidd and Crowther-Smith in these bundles, as well as material about Kidd having to give up the role of General Secretary and the question of who was to replace Henry Nevinson as President [related papers on these last two topics can also be found at U DSF/2/6]. The NCCL pamphlets in the collection span 1935 to 1995, but are concentrated in the 1930s and 1940s [U DSF/1/17-62]. A large proportion can also be found in the main Liberty archive, but this set has been kept together to illustrate the interests of Kidd and Crowther-Smith.

Ronald Kidd

There is very little surviving material on Ronald Kidd in the main Liberty archive and therefore, although these papers are far from extensive, they still comprise a useful source. There are two files relating to Kidd's tour of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria in 1938 [U DSF/2/2-3] and these contain a variety of material, ranging from letters of introduction and correspondence with those involved in the movement in defence of human rights and against anti-semitism in Czechoslovakia, to Kidd's itinerary and notes made during his journey. There is also a set of photographs of Jasina and other places in Sub Carpathian Russia and Slovakia, sent by Dr Maximilián Ryšánek in Brno, photographs of anti-semitic graffiti [possibly in London] and contemporary travel brochures and maps of the region. The only surviving example of a personal letter from Kidd to Crowther-Smith dates from this tour and was sent from Bratislava [see file U DSF/2/6]. After his return to England, Kidd travelled the country holding public meetings on Czechoslovakia and this is documented by correspondence, publicity leaflets and cuttings of reports in the press [U DSF/2/3].

Kidd's work for the NCCL in the early 1940s focussed on areas such as editing and writing articles for the journal Civil Liberty, and writing pamphlets. Examples of this can be found at U DSF/2/4-5, including drafts of his pamphlet on The fight for a free press (1942) [there is a printed copy at DSF/1/34]. There are four surviving pocket diaries, detailing the meetings and appointments which Kidd attended in 1934, 1935, 1936 and 1938 [U DSF/2/9], along with his passport, issued in 1936, and a number of undated photographs of Kidd [U DSF/2/10-11]. Unusual items include some photographs of political posters on display in wartime France, a publicity leaflet for the Soho Literary Group, organised by Kidd, and the annotated script of a play by Lennox Robinson, 'The lost leader', which Kidd must either have directed or played a part in [U DSF/2/14, 13, 12].

Sylvia Scaffardi

There is a small amount of material relating personally to Sylvia Scaffardi and her work, namely evidence submitted to Lord Justice Scott's Committee on Land Utilisation for Rural Areas in the early 1940s, which she gathered in her role as a civil servant in the Planning Division of the Ministry of Works [U DSF/3/1], and papers about her childhood in Brazil and her Brazilian grandparents [U DSF/3/3].

Barry Cox

Barry Cox was commissioned by the NCCL in the late 1960s to write a history of the organisation and this was published in 1975 as Civil liberties in Britain (Penguin). In the course of his research, he undertook a large number of interviews with founder members and contemporary figures in the NCCL, and the interviews were transcribed from tape by Sylvia Scaffardi. The annotated transcripts are included in this collection and include interviews with people such as Elizabeth Acland Allen, DN Pritt, Kingsley Martin, Claud Cockburn, Sylvia Scaffardi herself, Martin Ennals and Tony Smythe [U DSF/4/2-4].

Publications

This set of pamphlets and periodicals has been kept together within the collection (rather than being transferred to library stock), again as an illustration of the interests of Kidd and Scaffardi. There are a number of significant items in the fields of politics and literature, such as the August 1914 edition of the journal English Review containing part 5 of a serialised story by HG Wells, 'The world set free: a story of mankind' [U DSF/5/2]; a typescript on civil liberties in 1918 by Monica Ewer of the first National Council for Civil Liberties (founded in 1915 as the National Council Against Conscription) [U DSF/5/3]; two anti-semitic publications in German dating from 1937 and 1938, the second published by the National Socialist German Workers [Nazi] Party [U DSF/5/33 & 44]; two photographic compilations about the Spanish Civil War, issued by the Spanish Embassy in London in 1937 and 1938 [U DSF/5/34-35]; and the classic 1949 pamphlet, The time of the toad, by Dalton Trumbo, about the anti-Communist blacklist of Hollywood writers [U DSF/5/72]. The vast majority of these publications date from the 1930s and 1940s.

Arrangement:

U DSF/1 National Council for Civil Liberties, 1934 - 2001
U DSF/2 Ronald Kidd, 1916 - 1985
U DSF/3 Sylva Scaffard, 1930s - 1975
U DSF/4 Barry Cox, 1965 - 1971
U DSF/5 Publications, circa 1910 - 1978

Extent: 1.5 linear metres

Related Material:

Records of Liberty (National Council for Civil Liberties) [U DCL]

Access Conditions:

Access will be granted to any accredited reader.

U DSF/1 National Council for Civil Liberties U DSF/1/1-6 Annual reports U DSF/1/7-12 Files U DSF/1/13-16 Periodicals U DSF/1/17-62 Pamphlets and memoranda 1934 - 2001

U DSF/1/1 Bound vol. of published annual reports and reports of AGMs From 1939, these are mainly printed in Civil Liberty 1 volume 1934 – 1957

U DSF/1/2 Cc. ts. draft of ‘The first year’s work’ by Elizabeth Acland Allen 1 item [1935]

U DSF/1/3 Ts. annual report 1 item 1940

U DSF/1/4 Secretary’s report for the year 1 item 1944

U DSF/1/5 Ts. drafts of two annual reports 2 items post 1945

U DSF/1/6 Published annual reports 11 items 1957 - 1994

U DSF/1/7 Artificial file of miscellaneous papers Including constitution and rules (1946); speech on civil rights for colonial peoples; draft submission about the BBC; annotated typescript by IO Evans, ‘For boys and girls who think freedom worth having’ (May Day 1935); speech on press freedom by Sylvia Crowther-Smith (1953); Executive Committee minutes; circular letters from Ronald Kidd as NCCL General Secretary; editorial for Civil Liberty (1941); letters from Stefan Zweig (1), JBS Haldane (1) (with Kidd’s reply), WR Hooper and others; ms. notes by Kidd about the management of the NCCL office; leaflets about NCCL’s 21st anniversary; ms. transcripts of anti-Semitic letters received by Lilian Felt and Rose Silverman (1939); decisions of AGM (1953) 1 file 1935 - 1953

U DSF/1/8 Artificial file of miscellaneous papers Including NCCL briefings and leaflets; Executive Committee minutes; circulars; correspondence; papers for conferences on war (1934) and freedom of the press (1941); note by Ronald Kidd about observing a strikers’ march in the East End (26.1.1936); postcard of Kidd; postcard to Kidd from Friedrich R[?] in Moscow; ms. notes on AP Herbert and free speech; leaflets and letters to Sylvia Scaffardi about the Civil Liberties Development Fund (1980); press release about a British report on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; ms. notes and drafts on the history of the NCCL 1 file 1936 - 1998

U DSF/1/9 Artificial file of miscellaneous papers Including leaflets; notices of meetings; circulars and memoranda; papers about the presidency sub committee (1942); minutes of Executive Committee, General Purposes Committee and Finance and Appeals Sub Committee; papers for International Conference on Human Rights (1947); reports; information sheets and policy statements; letters, including from A Francis James (RAF Ternhill) (1), Elaine Martin (Ronald Kidd’s sister) (1), A Koehler (International Federation of Leagues against Racism and Anti-Semitism) (2), Hertha Christie-Curwen (1), and Arthur Clegg (Colonial Information Bureau) (1), and from Ronald Kidd (2) 1 file 1938 - 1959

U DSF/1/10 Artificial file of miscellaneous papers Including motions for AGM (1964); black and white photograph of a man addressing a meeting [? mass meeting on press freedom, April 1942]; report of conference on the state of civil liberties in Britain (1952); letters and circulars; annotated typescript by Ronald Kidd/Sylvia Crowther-Smith on freedom of opinion and the BBC; examples of headed paper used by Kidd, with testimonials and curriculum vitae; ts. drafts of history of the origins of the NCCL 1 file 1930s - 1964  

U DSF/1/11 Artificial file of miscellaneous papers Including press releases (1972); report to 1968 AGM by General Secretary Tony Smythe; ts. ‘The pattern of repression’, issued by Action for People’s Justice; typescripts about Jersey and the Harworth Colliery strike; notes about Ronald Kidd’s health; ms. and ts. notes about the history of the NCCL; transcripts of letters (2) from Sylvia Crowther-Smith to EM Forster (1955); typescript article for Civil Liberty on ‘The democratic retreat in France’ (1940); speech by Ronald Kidd on ‘The question of legislation against racial incitement’ (1937) 1 file 1930s - 1972

U DSF/1/12 File. Correspondence between Fionnuala Ni Aolain, Liberty and various publishers about her research and the publication of her book, The politics of force. Including a fax copy of the agreement to undertake the research for Liberty and her curriculum vitae 1 file 1994 - 1999

U DSF/1/13 Issues of Civil Liberty (journal) 97 items 1937 - 1951

U DSF/1/14 Issues of Civil Liberty (monthly bulletin) 78 items 1965 - 1976

U DSF/1/15 Issues of Rights (journal) 32 items 1976 - 1984

U DSF/1/16 Issues of Civil Liberty Agenda (later Liberty) (newsletter) 11 items 1991 - 2001

U DSF/1/17 Ts. ‘Speakers’ notes on fascism and anti-Semitism’ 1 item 1930s

U DSF/1/18 Pamphlet. Non-flam films 1 item 1935

U DSF/1/19 Pamphlet. Police methods 1 item c 1935

U DSF/1/20 Report of a Commission of Inquiry into certain disturbances at Thurloe Square, South Kensington on March 22, 1936 1 item 1936

U DSF/1/21 Report of a Commission of Inquiry appointed to examine the purpose and effect of the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Acts (Northern Ireland) 1922 and 1923 1 item 1936

U DSF/1/22 The Harworth Colliery strike. A report to the Executive Committee of the National Council for Civil Liberties 1 item 1937

U DSF/1/23 Pamphlet. The strange case of Major Vernon 1 item c. 1937

U DSF/1/24 Pamphlet. Freedom of the press and the challenge of the Official Secrets Act 1 item 1938

U DSF/1/25 Pamphlet. Your freedom in danger 1 item 1940s

U DSF/1/26 Pamphlet. Civil liberties offended 1 item 1940s

U DSF/1/27 Pamphlet. This freedom (Civil Service branch) 1 item 1940s

U DSF/1/28 Conference report. Civil liberty in the colonial Empire 1 item 1941

U DSF/1/29 Pamphlet. The press and the war (Press Freedom Committee) 1 item 1941

U DSF/1/30 Pamphlet. The internment and treatment of aliens 1 item May 1941

U DSF/1/31 Pamphlet. Civil liberties defended 1 item Aug1941

U DSF/1/32 Pamphlet. Harold Laski, Freedom of the press in wartime 1 item c. 1941

U DSF/1/33 Pamphlet. Press freedom 1 item 1942

U DSF/1/34 Pamphlet. Ronald Kidd, The fight for a free press (two different editions) 2 items 1942  

U DSF/1/35 Pamphlet. Angela Tuckett, Civil liberty and the industrial worker 1 item c. 1942

U DSF/1/36 Pamphlet. Elizabeth Acland Allen, It shall not happen here 1 item 1943

U DSF/1/37 Pamphlet. Tom Driberg, Absentees for freedom 1 item 1944

U DSF/1/38 Pamphlet. DN Pritt, Defence regulation 1AA 1 item 1944

U DSF/1/39 Pamphlet. RJ Spector, Freedom for the forces 1 item 1940s

U DSF/1/40 Pamphlet. The War Office and the Official Secrets Act: attack on trade union freedom 1 item 1940s

U DSF/1/41 Pamphlet. Elizabeth Acland Allen, Local government and civil liberty 1 item 1945

U DSF/1/42 Pamphlet. The National Council for Civil Liberties. The record of a decade of work 1934 – 1945 for democracy and liberty 1 item 1945

U DSF/1/43 Pamphlet. Civil liberties and the colonies 1 item 1945

U DSF/1/44 Pamphlet. It isn’t colour bar, but… 1 item post 1945

U DSF/1/45 Pamphlet. Geoff Parsons, Black chattels: the story of the Australian aborigines 1 item c. 1946

U DSF/1/46 Conference report, International Conference on Human Rights 1 item Jun 1947

U DSF/1/47 Leaflet on fascism and anti-Semitism 1 item Sep 1948

U DSF/1/48 Pamphlet. Civil servants and politics (Civil Service branch) 1 item c. 1950

U DSF/1/49 Ts. ‘Evidence to the Royal Commission on the Press’ 1 item 1950s

U DSF/1/50 The journey to Berlin. Report of a Commission of Inquiry 1 item 1951

U DSF/1/51 Ts. ‘Memorandum on repressive legislation in the Dominions’ 1 item 1952

U DSF/1/52 Ts. ‘Civil liberties in Kenya’ 1 item 1953

U DSF/1/53 Ts. ‘Civil liberties and the scheme for federation in Central Africa’ 1 item 1953

U DSF/1/54 Ts. Memorandum and supplement, being the NCCL submission to the Royal Commission on the Law relating to Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency 1 item Jan 1955

U DSF/1/55 Pamphlet. 50,000 outside the law 1 item c. 1955

U DSF/1/56 Ts. ‘Anti-Semitism and colour bar. A warning’ 1 item c. 1959

U DSF/1/57 Pamphlet. Civil liberty 1961 1 item 1961

U DSF/1/58 Pamphlet. Public order and the police 1 item 1961

U DSF/1/59 Ts. ‘Report on the demonstration in Grosvenor Square, London, on Mar 17, 1968’ 1 item 1968

U DSF/1/60 Pamphlet. The use of the police for political purposes 1 item mid 20th cent

U DSF/1/61 Pamphlet. 1992 and you 1 item pre 1992

U DSF/1/62 Pamphlet. Northern Ireland: human rights and the peace dividend 1 item 1995

U DSF/2 Ronald Kidd 1916 - 1985

U DSF/2/1 Photocopies of papers from Ronald Kidd’s file as employee of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, with correspondence from John Symons of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine 1 bundle 1916 – 1985

U DSF/2/2 File. Tour of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria by Ronald Kidd Travel and tourist brochures for Czechoslovakia and Hungary, maps of Central Europe, black and white negatives of [? Prague] (8) and black and white photographs of anti-Semitic graffiti in [? London] (10) 1 file 1937 – 1938

U DSF/2/3 File. Tour of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria by Ronald Kidd Correspondence (including about travel arrangements); letters of introduction; names and addresses of contacts; ts. itinerary; ms. notes made during the visit; pamphlets; black and white photographs (30) of Jasina and other places in Sub Carpathian Russia and Slovakia; ts. lecture notes on Czechoslovakia; letters arranging public meetings in Britain, with related leaflets and cuttings.

Includes letters from Dr O Frey (Czech Legation, London) (3), Sylvia Eltz (German Social Democratic Workers’ Party, Prague) (1), Victor Gollancz (1), Kingsley Martin (2), Dr Maxmilián Ryšánek (Brno) (2), Secretary General of Ligue Française pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen (1), Willy Werner (Hradec Králové) (1), Czech League against Anti-Semitism, Area Committee for Mähren and Schliesen (1), A Koehler (International Federation of Leagues against Racism and Anti-Semitism) (1) 1 file 1938

U DSF/2/4 File. Articles by Ronald Kidd and editorial work on Civil Liberty Including ms. drafts, cc. typescripts, cuttings and correspondence, with letters from Kingsley Martin (1), Ladipo Solanke (West African Students Union), DN Pritt (2) and Harold Laski (1) 1 file 1940 – 1942

U DSF/2/5 File. ‘Historical pamphlets no.1. The struggle for a free press’ Ms. notes; ms. and ts. drafts of pamphlet by Ronald Kidd; letter from Elizabeth Acland Allen; published pamphlet, The press and the war (NCCL Press Freedom Committee, circa 1942) 1 file circa 1942

U DSF/2/6 File. Miscellaneous papers Bundle of cards left at Ronald Kidd’s graveside; letter from Kidd to Sylvia Crowther-Smith from Bratislava (16 August 1938); correspondence, reports and recommendations about Ronald Kidd’s retirement as General Secretary and appointment as Director of NCCL, and about the question of a new president. Includes letters from DN Pritt (2), Elizabeth Acland Allen (4), Henry Miller (Secretary, Cambuslang Branch of National Unemployed Workers Movement) (1), Kingsley Martin (1) and Mary Kidd (1) 1 file 1938 - 1942

U DSF/2/7 Letters and statement about Ronald Kidd’s health 3 items 1941

U DSF/2/8 Ts. copies of press notices and obituaries of Ronald Kidd after his death on 12/05/1942 1 bundle 1942

U DSF/2/9 Pocket diaries (with details of meetings and appointments) 4 volumes 1934 - 1938

U DSF/2/10 Passport of Ronald Kidd, with one spare photograph 2 items 11 Mar 1936

U DSF/2/11 Black and white photographs of Ronald Kidd, including one signed 7 items mid 20th cent

U DSF/2/12 Bound ts. script of play, ‘The lost leader’, by Lennox Robinson 1 item 1930s

U DSF/2/13 Publicity leaflet for the Soho Literary Group, organised by Ronald Kidd mid 20th cent

U DSF/2/14 Black and white photographs of political posters on display in wartime France 3 items 1940s

U DSF/2/15 Postcards a) Map of the Mediterranean, showing Italian plans for regional domination, with text on reverse about Spanish Civil War, no date b) ‘Forces de paix et forces de guerre’ [comparative chart], no date c) Display on agriculture at the Spanish pavilion, 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne, Paris, 1937 d) ‘No pasaran!’, issued by the Propaganda Commissariat, Autonomous Government of Catalonia, 1937 4 items 1930s

U DSF/3 Sylvia Scaffardi (nee Crowther-Smith) 1930s - 1975

U DSF/3/1 Bundle. Committee on Land Utilisation for Rural Areas, Ministry of Works and Buildings (Lord Justice Scott’s Committee) Evidence submitted by Association of British Chambers of Commerce, County Councils Association, Pennine Way Association, Mr SW Smedley, Bolton Chamber of Commerce, Garden Cities and Town Planning Association, Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree and the Ramblers Association; related pamphlets; minutes of Executive Committee of County Councils Association (28.1.1942); report of Committee (Cmd. 6378) 1 bundle 1939 – 1942

U DSF/3/2 File of photocopied press cuttings about fascism in the 1930s Collected for Fire under the carpet (1986) 1 file 1930s

U DSF/3/3 Ts. annotated talk, ‘Childhood in Brazil’ With letters (2) from Olivia Chalmers about the Brazilian origins of Sylvia Scaffardi’s grandparents 3 items 1973

U DSF/3/4 Ms. and ts. notes about Robert Skidelsky’s 'Oswald Mosley' (Macmillan) 1 item 1975  

U DSF/4 Barry Cox 1965 - 1971

U DSF/4/1 File. Correspondence of Barry Cox setting up interviews with key figures in the NCCL Including letters from DN Pritt (2), Tony Smythe (1), AP Herbert (1), Julian Huxley (1), PMS Blackett (1), Kingsley Martin (1), JB Priestley (1), EM Forster (2), Sylvia Scaffardi (2), Ritchie Calder (1) and John Platts-Mills (1). With cc. ts. agreement between Cox and the NCCL to produce a manuscript history of the organisation, and ms. notes 1 file 1968 – 1971

U DSF/4/2 File. Ts. transcripts of interviews undertaken by Barry Cox of key figures in the NCCL Including Neil Lawson, Elizabeth Acland Allen, DN Pritt, Geoffrey Bing, Kingsley Martin, Claud Cockburn, Sylvia Scaffardi, George Catlin, Malcolm Purdie and [?] Adams 1 file late 1960s

U DSF/4/3 File. Ts. transcripts of interviews undertaken by Barry Cox of key figures in the NCCL Including Dingle Foot, DN Pritt, Geoffrey Bing, Kingsley Martin (with comments by Sylvia Scaffardi), Claud Cockburn, Sylvia Scaffardi and Martin Ennals. Also ts. ‘Ronald Kidd’s politics. Political standing of NCCL up to 1941. Red smear’ and transcripts of letters from Kingsley Martin and EM Forster 1 file late 1960s

U DSF/4/4 Bundle of ts. transcripts and ms. notes of interviews undertaken by Barry Cox of key figures in the NCCL Including Tony Smythe, Martin Ennals, Kingsley Martin, Harry Street and David Williams. Also ms. notes on miscellaneous topics and annotated ts. paper by Tony Smythe on ‘The role of the NCCL’, at a symposium on direct action and democratic representation 1 bundle late 1960s

U DSF/4/5 File. Race relations/racial equality NCCL bulletins, circulars and letters; photocopies, cuttings and offprints of journal articles; quarterly bulletin of Race Relations Board; details of legal cases under section 6: incitement to racial hatred, of Race Relations Act 1965 (compiled by Anthony Dickey); ms. notes 1 file 1965 – 1971  

U DSF/5 Pamphlets and periodicals by other organisations c1910 - 1978

U DSF/5/1 Pamphlet. Ronald Kidd, For freedom’s cause: an appeal to working men (Women’s Social and Political Union) 1 item c 1910

U DSF/5/2 The English Review, edited by Austin Harrison Includes part 5 of ‘The world set free: a story of mankind’, by HG Wells 1 item Apr 1914

U DSF/5/3 Monica Ewer, ts. ‘Civil liberties 1918’ (Record Office, National Council for Civil Liberties), with photocopy 2 items Jan 1918

U DSF/5/4 The immortal hour: music-drama by Rutland Broughton…from the play and poems of Fiona Macleod 1 item c 1923

U DSF/5/5 Pamphlet. GDH Cole, William Cobbett (Fabian Tract no.215) 1 item 1925

U DSF/5/6 Ashley Dukes, The acting edition of The Man with a Load of Mischief: a comedy in three acts 1 item 1926

U DSF/5/7 Germinal (literary magazine), no.2, edited by Sylvia Pankhurst 1 item 1924

U DSF/5/8 Pamphlet. Harold Laski, Socialism and freedom (Fabian Tract no.216) 1 item 1930

U DSF/5/9 Pamphlet. Lord Hewart of Bury, Law, ethics and legislation (BBC) 1 item 1930

U DSF/5/10 Pamphlet. A national policy: an account of the emergency policy advanced by Sir Oswald Mosley MP (Macmillan) 1 item 1931

U DSF/5/11 Pamphlet. To fascism or communism? (Communist Party of Great Britain) 1 item 1931  

U DSF/5/12 Pamphlet. Douglas Goldring, Liberty and licensing (Hobby-Horse series no.1) 1 item 1932

U DSF/5/13 Pamphlet. The secret international. Armament firms at work (Union of Democratic Control) 1 item 1932 U DSF/5/14 The Golden Bowl (an occasional magazine devoted to the restoration of human values), no.7 1 item 1932 - 1933

U DSF/5/15 Pamphlet. CLR James, The case for West- Indian self government (Day to Day Pamphlets no.16 - Leonard and Virginia Woolf) 1 item 1933

U DSF/5/16 Pamphlet. TA Innes & Ivor Castle, Covenants with death (Daily Express) 1 item 1934

U DSF/5/17 Pamphlet. A souvenir of the Great Empire Air Day of 1934 (Union of Democratic Control) 1 item 1934

U DSF/5/18 Pamphlet. The Prudential and its money (Labour Research Department) 1 item 1934

U DSF/5/19 Pamphlet. Ivor Montagu, Blackshirt brutality: the story of Olympia 1 item 1934

U DSF/5/20 Pamphlet. ‘Vindicator’, Fascists at Olympia. A record of eye-witnesses and victims (Victor Gollancz Ltd.) 1 item 1934

U DSF/5/21 Life and letters. The Florin magazine 1 item May 1934

U DSF/5/22 Pamphlet. P Glading, How Bedaux works (Labour Research Department) 1 item Nov 1934

U DSF/5/23 Pamphlet. G Bernard Shaw, HG Wells, JM Keynes & Ernst Toller, Stalin-Wells talk The verbatim record and a discussion (New Statesman and Nation) 1 item Dec 1934  

U DSF/5/24 Pamphlet. Ten points against fascism (Young Communist League) 1 item c 1934

U DSF/5/25 Pamphlet. W Fox, Taximen and taxi-owners (Labour Research Department) 1 item Feb 1935

U DSF/5/26 Left Review (5 issues) 5 items Mar 1935 - Feb 1937

U DSF/5/27 Artists International Association, Bulletin, no. 10 With circular about attempt to form a new association affiliated to the International of Revolutionary Writers 2 items Nov 1935

U DSF/5/28 Pamphlet. DN Pritt, The Zinoviev trial (Victor Gollancz Ltd.) 1 item 1936

U DSF/5/29 Pamphlet. Sean Murray, The Irish revolt: 1916 and after (Communist Party of Great Britain) 1 item 1936

U DSF/5/30 Pamphlet. Herbert Read, Essential Communism (Pamphlets on the New Economics series no.12) Social Credit publication 1 item Apr 1936

U DSF/5/31 Pamphlet. The trial of Luiz Carlos Prestes (Association Juridique Internationale) 1 item c 1936

U DSF/5/32 Pamphlet. The case for Cyprus (Committee for the Autonomy of Cyprus) 1 item c 1937

U DSF/5/33 Book. Elvira Bauer, Trau keinen Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinen Jud bei seinem Eid: ein Bilderbuch für gross und klein (Stürmer Publishing House, Nuremberg, 1936) Anti-Semitic publication, with ts. English translation, stamped ‘National Council for Civil Liberties’, January 1937 2 items 1936 - Jan 1937

U DSF/5/34 Book. A Ramos Oliveira, La lucha del pueblo Espanol por su libertad (Spanish Embassy, London) 1 volume 1937  

U DSF/5/35 Book. A Ramos Oliveira, Work and War in Spain (Spanish Embassy, London) 1 volume 1938

U DSF/5/36 Pamphlet. Czechoslovakia – a deserted nation. A woman writes ‘Goodbye’ (News Chronicle Czech Relief Fund) 1 item 1938

U DSF/5/37 Pamphlet. The facts. Czechoslovakia’s martyrdom (European Association and League of Nations Union, 1938) 1 item 1938

U DSF/5/38 Miscellaneous no.7 (1938). Correspondence respecting Czechoslovakia September 1938 (Cmd. 5847) (HMSO) 1 item 1938

U DSF/5/39 Miscellaneous no.8 (1938). Further documents respecting Czechoslovakia including the agreement concluded at Munich on September 29, 1938 (Cmd. 5848) (HMSO) 1 item 1938

U DSF/5/40 Pamphlet. Writers declare against fascism (Association of Writers for Intellectual Liberty) 1 item 1938

U DSF/5/41 Pamphlet. How the rich live: sidelights on the Cunningham Reid case (Communist Party of Great Britain) 1 item 1938

U DSF/5/42 Pamphlet. Eternal vigilance. The story of civil liberty 1937-1938 (American Civil Liberties Union) 1 item 1938

U DSF/5/43 Pamphlet. RST Chorley, The threat to civil liberty (Haldane Society) 1 item 1938

U DSF/5/44 Book. Dr Hans Diebow ed., Der ewige Jude (Zentralverlag der NSDAP) Anti-Semitic publication issued by the Nazi Party 1 volume 1938

U DSF/5/45 Pamphlet. Hands off the Protectorates (International African Service Bureau) 1 item c 1938 Hull History Centre: Papers of Sylvia Scaffardi page 19 of 21

U DSF/5/46 Pamphlet. Kingsley Martin, Fascism, democracy and the press (New Statesman) 1 item c 1939

U DSF/5/47 Pamphlet. Eric Gill, All that England stands for (Peace Pledge Union) 1 item post 1939

U DSF/5/48 The British Subject, vol.I, no.5 1 item Feb 1940

U DSF/5/49 Pamphlet. Native races, the war and peace aims (Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society) With covering letter 2 items Mar 1940

U DSF/5/50 Pamphlet. Barbed wire in France. They fought for freedom. Their reward – concentration camps (International Brigade Association) 1 item early 1940

U DSF/5/51 Pamphlet. Where are you going? An open letter to Communists by Victor Gollancz 1 item 9 May 1940

U DSF/5/52 Pamphlet. U DMWP [?], France faces fascism (Fabian Society Research Series no.52) 1 item Oct 1940

U DSF/5/53 Pamphlet. Why France fell: the lessons for us (Union of Democratic Control) 1 item c1940

U DSF/5/54 Pamphlet. Morrison’s prisoners. The story of the Czechoslovakian anti-fascist fighters interned in Britain (National Council for Democratic Aid) 1 item 1941

U DSF/5/55 Pamphlet. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The strength of our ally (Lawrence and Wishart) 1 item c1941

U DSF/5/56 Pamphlet. The Anglo-Soviet Treaty 26 May 1942 (Society for Cultural Relations with the Soviet Union) 1 item 1942

U DSF/5/57 Pamphlet. Who’s who in Nazi Germany (British government publication) [copy no.14] 1 item 15 Dec 1942

U DSF/5/58 Pamphlet. A pocket guide to India (United States War and Navy Departments) 1 item c 1942

U DSF/5/59 Art and Industry (2 issues) 2 items Jul - Aug 1943

U DSF/5/60 Pamphlet. André Marty, L’heure de la France a sonné (Communist Party of Great Britain) 1 item c 1943

U DSF/5/61 Pamphlet. For Liberty Exhibition. Exhibition of paintings by members of the AIA 1 item c 1943

U DSF/5/62 Pamphlet. Robert E Cushman, Our constitutional freedoms. Civil liberties: an American heritage (National Foundation for Education in American Citizenship) 1 item Jan 1944

U DSF/5/63 Central Board for Conscientious Objectors, Bulletin, no.55 1 item Sep 1944

U DSF/5/64 Britânia, vol.I, nos. III, V & VII 3 items Sep 1944 - Jan 1945

U DSF/5/65 Pamphlet. John Price, British trade unions and the war (Ministry of Information) 1 item 1945

U DSF/5/66 Pamphlet. Town planning and housing. What can I do? (Town and Country Planning Association) 1 item 1945

U DSF/5/67 Choix: les écrits du mois à travers le monde, no.11 1 item Dec 1945

U DSF/5/68 Greek News, vol.1, no.7 (League for Democracy in Greece) 1 item Sep 1946

U DSF/5/69 Civil Rights, vol.1, nos. 1 & 2 (Emergency Committee for Civil Liberty, Canada) 2 items 15 Aug - 15 Sep 1946  

U DSF/5/70 Pamphlet. Ashwin Choudree & PR Pather, A commentary on the Asiatic land tenure and Indian Representation Act (South African Congress) 1 item 1 May 1946

U DSF/5/71 Écho Revue Internationale: écrits, faits et idées de tous pays 1 item Jun 1947

U DSF/5/72 Pamphlet. Dalton Trumbo, The time of the toad: a study of the inquisition in America (The Hollywood Ten) 1 item 1949

U DSF/5/73 Pamphlet. Discrimination: a study in injustice to a minority (All Party Anti-Partition Conference, Dublin) 1 item c. 1950

U DSF/5/74 Pamphlet. Bertrand Russell, How near is war? (Derricke Ridway) 1 item 1952

U DSF/5/75 Pamphlet. Seretse Khama and the Bamangwato people (Seretse Khama Campaign Committee) 1 item c 1952

U DSF/5/76 Pamphlet. Kenneth Kaunda, Dominion status for Central Africa? (Union of Democratic Control/Movement for Colonial Freedom) 1 item c 1959

U DSF/5/77 Pamphlet. The Black Paper. Report to the nation: H bomb war (Peace News) 1 item 1960s

U DSF/5/78 Pamphlet. This is apartheid (International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa) 1 item 1978

U DSF/5/79 Bundle of photocopies of extracts from pamphlets and books relating to fascism, antifascism and the 1930s in Britain Including from Phil Piratin’s Our flag stays red, They did not pass: A souvenir of the East London workers’ victory over fascism (Independent Labour Party), The BUF by the BUF (Communist Party of Great Britain) and Tom Driberg’s Mosley? No! 1 bundle late 20th cent.

[admin]

The Eugenics Society archives in the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine
by Lesley A Hall

When the Wellcome Trust first set up the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre (now subsumed into Archives and Manuscripts) within the Wellcome Institute Library in 1979, it was with the aim of collecting and preserving records illuminating twentieth century developments in medicine, biomedical science and healthcare. It was clear that a good deal of important material was falling through existing systems of preservation. The initial assumption was that the focus of collecting policy would be the papers of individual scientists and doctors, along the lines already being pursued by the Contemporary Scientists Archive Centre in Oxford (now the National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists and relocated to Bath). However, it emerged at an early stage of the CMAC’s activities that there was equal urgency to preserve the archives of voluntary organisations operating within the medical/health/welfare field. These shed an important light on these issues within the British context, given the importance of voluntarism. The Wellcome now holds records of numerous professional bodies, learned societies, research institutions, charities, campaigning organisations and propagandist associations (and bodies which either simultaneously or at different phases of their existence performed several of these functions).

Although the papers of a few organisations had already been placed in the Wellcome Institute prior to the appointment of an archivist, the first organisational archive actively acquired by the newly established CMAC was that of the Eugenics Society, early in 1980. The CMAC has already received an important collection of papers of Dr Marie Stopes which had been rejected by the (then) British Museum Reading Room (now the Department of Manuscripts, British Library), although it had accepted substantial portions of her extremely large archive of personal papers and material relating to the birth control clinics she established. These two accessions laid the foundations for one of the major strengths of our collections, birth control and reproductive health more generally. The Wellcome now holds the most important archive on the birth control movement in the UK.

The Eugenics Society archive has been one of the most popular collections in the Wellcome: files were being made available to researchers even before cataloguing had been fully completed, such was the demand. As an archive it is extremely rich, and is of major interest well beyond research into the internal activities and politics of the Society, and indeed extending beyond the study of eugenics as an intellectual and political phenomenon. Over the past 10 years it has consistently been among both the most heavily-used collections we hold, with an average number of 18 readers per year, and among the collections from which the greatest numbers of items have been produced, with an average of over 500 productions each year. In the light of the latter statistic, the decision was recently taken to make researchers use the microfiche copies of the most heavily used portions of the collection for reasons of conservation. While many users are students undertaking dissertation projects, or individuals looking up one or two files bearing on a tangential subject of research, there have been major studies done, and still currently in progress, making extensive use of this archive. Some international scholars return year after year.

The Society was founded in 1907 with the by then very elderly Sir Francis Galton as President. The record for the early years of the Eugenics Education Society, as it was known until 1926, is relatively sparse compared to what survives for the period after approximately 1920. However, there is a complete run of Annual Reports from 1908, and before 1915, when they became much slimmer for reasons of wartime economy, these are extremely full and detailed and include membership lists (there are a number of irregular discrete membership lists for subsequent years). There are also minutes of Council from 1907, which include those of the Executive Council from 1913. The solid core of minute books continues to the 1960s (later volumes still being retained by the Society). Besides Council, Executive and Finance Committee minutes, increasing numbers of committees were set up from the 1920s for specific purposes (long and short-term), or to study and report on particular issues. These included Film, 1927; Propaganda, 1932-1940; Family Allowances, 1932-1934; Birth Control, 1932-1934; Research, 1923-1931, 1946-1956; and Editorial, 1936-1967.


Figure 1

The wider context within which the Society was established is well-documented in a series of volumes of newspaper cuttings, 1907-1910. These form part of a substantial group of press-cuttings within the collection, in both chronological and subject sequences, up to the 1970s. There are a number of gaps in the coverage, in particular the 1910s and 1920s represent a major lacuna, and there is also relatively little for the 1950s, although two files of cuttings concerning the 1958 debates on artificial insemination contextualise the Society’s own files on the subject and the audiotapes of doctors who were practising it recorded by the AID Investigation Council which it set up.

A very few files survive from the early years, including a substantial number of press-cuttings about the First International Eugenics Conference held in London in 1912, and one file on ‘Feeblemindedness’, which was, of course, an area in which the Society was particularly anxious to influence policy. However, on the whole this early material reflects propaganda activities rather than impact on policy, with items on conferences, notices of lectures, and minutes of the Summer School on Civics and Eugenics.


Figure 2

After 1920 an ever-increasing number of files, containing correspondence and other materials, survive. Two main sequences are particularly heavily used as they demonstrate the extraordinarily broad range of the Society’s interests and spheres of contact. There are 22 boxes of correspondence arranged by individual correspondent (‘People’): some of these were members or officers of the Society, but a considerable number were individuals with whom the Society was in contact for various reasons -– liaison on matters of mutual interest, requests to address meetings –- and even members of the general public. These files include many distinguished names, and even a few noted antagonists of eugenics feature, such as Dr Letitia Fairfield, feminist, socialist, Roman Catholic convert, and first female senior medical officer of the London County Council. There are slightly more boxes of ‘General’ files, containing materials either on specific subjects of interest to the Society, or pertaining to their relations with other organisations.

A number of other groups of material are also of considerable research interest. There is a single box of files on Branches and Other Societies, which include both provincial and regional branches and societies in the UK, organisations in other countries, and international bodies. The collection includes some material on family histories and pedigrees. The propaganda activities of the Society from the mid-1920s are well reflected in the archive. Increasing financial stability enabled it to support a small team of lecturers to go about the country addressing meetings of a wide range of organisations, from Women’s Co-operative Guilds to Rotary Clubs, and to take stands at exhibitions, health weeks and conferences. Reports were returned [see Figure 1] and these provide a very useful source about responses from audiences and their preconceptions. There also survive various visual aids prepared for exhibitions and lectures, including charts demonstrating heredity -– there is a particularly attractive one on the antirrhinum [see Figure 2] -– magic lantern slides, and posters. Besides their main purpose these also typify contemporary graphic design [see Figure 3: ‘Healthy Seed]. Two versions of the film made in the 1930s, with narration by Sir Julian Huxley, survive: the longer From Generation to Generation, and the abbreviated Heredity in Man. These are made available for viewing on video subject to the usual conditions of access (see below). Other visual materials include cartoons, a sketch of an armorial achievement deemed appropriate to the Society, the design for the ‘Eugenic family’ extensively used on the Society’s literature during the 1930s [see Figure 4], and some portrait photographs of individuals associated with the Society, including several members of Sir Francis Galton’s own family.


Figure 3


Figure 4

The financial position of the Society was rendered particularly solid by the 1929 bequest from the wealthy and eccentric Australian sheep-farmer Henry Twitchin. The collection includes not only a substantial amount of correspondence between Twitchin and Major Leonard Darwin (when the latter was President of the Society) prior to his death, but material on his family background and on the administration of his estate.

Embedded within this collection are various items originating with specific individuals or organisations who or which were connected with the Society. There are two boxes of papers of Sir Bernard Mallet, President of the Society, 1929-1932, created in his personal rather than his official capacity. On her death in 1958, Marie Stopes left her birth control clinic (and her library) to the Society. The collection therefore includes some clinic administrative material and other correspondence of Stopes’s, presumably found on the premises, as well as the records of the Marie Stopes Memorial Centre set up by the Eugenics Society to administer the clinic.

Because this clinic was not constrained by the various limitations of the Family Planning Association, it was able to do innovative work in the provision of contraception for the unmarried (one is not quite sure whether the late Dr Stopes would have approved of this!). A number of items were given by Dr G. C. Bertram from his own collection of papers accumulated during his years of association with the Society. The Society provided support to the Birth Control Investigation Committee, 1927-1932, and the Joint Committee on Voluntary Sterilisation, 1934-1938, and records of both these bodies can be found in the archive. There is a good deal generally on the campaign to obtain Parliamentary legislation enabling voluntary sterilisation in the early 1930s, including letters from members of the general public trying to obtain this operation in the face of medical indifference or outright refusal, and as already mentioned, the Society took an active part in the debates on artificial insemination by donor in the period after World War II.

Besides the archives of the Society itself, a number of other collections in the Wellcome Library shed light on its activities and fill out the picture. The papers of Carlos Paton Blacker, FRCP, who was General Secretary from 1931 to 1952 and Honorary Secretary 1952-1961, contain correspondence with and about the Society, and also illuminate his less formal contacts with other members and officers of the Society, many of whom were or became personal friends. They also document his wider involvement in the birth control movement, from the Birth Control Investigation Committee in the 1920s, in which he played a leading role, to his work with the Simon Population Trust on vasectomy provision in the 1960s and 70s. After the Second World War Blacker was asked to comment on the ‘experimental work on eugenics performed in concentration camps by the medical profession in Germany’ and his papers include both notes from 1947, and his article ‘"Eugenic" Experiments Conducted by the Nazis on Human Subjects’, published in The Eugenics Review in 1952. The papers of the biologist Sir Alan Parkes also contain some items on the Society. The copious Family Planning Association archives contain material directly dealing with its relationship with the Eugenics Society, including further records of the Birth Control Investigation Committee, as well as correspondence with individuals such as Blacker and Baker, and discussions in committee about relations between the two bodies. The Marie Stopes papers, which consist predominantly of correspondence received from the general public who had read her books or seen her name in the press, include letters asking about questions of ‘breeding’ in the light of family health issues, as well as specifically on birth control. Most of her correspondence with the Society and with C. P. Blacker is to be found among the papers in the British Library Department of Manuscripts. The papers of the long-lived physician Frederick Parkes Weber FRCP (1863-1962) contain items testifying to his personal interest in the topic of eugenics (among the very many subjects in which he was interested), and, due to his particular medical concerns, this collection is actually a better resource for the study of the developing understanding of, and attitudes towards, genetic disorders within the medical profession between c. 1890 and 1960, than the archives of the Eugenics Society itself. Two files of copy correspondence from the Rockefeller Archive Centre, Tarrytown, New York, USA, about Rockefeller funding for research projects of the Society, mainly for John R. Baker’s spermicide research, 1934-1940, are also held.

What we do not have at the Wellcome are the papers of Sir Francis Galton: due to occasional misunderstandings about the relationship between the Galton Institute and this eminent late-nineteenth century polymath we sometimes receive requests for information relating to, e.g., Galton’s meteorological research or criminological investigations. His papers are, in fact, held just across the road in the Library of University College London (as are the papers of his disciple Karl Pearson), and UCL also houses a small museum of Galton artefacts.

The Wellcome Library holds the books and pamphlets formerly in the Eugenics Society Library, transferred in 1988 at the time of the move out of the Eccleston Square offices. These include many associational copies, especially for Marie Stopes, as a result of her bequest to the Society: numerous volumes formerly in her possession have been annotated by her in her dashing and unmistakable handwriting, which adds considerably to their interest. The Library catalogue (which includes the books and pamphlets from the Society Library) can be consulted online at http://www.wellcomelibrary.org.

The Eugenics Society archives are open to researchers by appointment with Archives and Manuscripts, once they have gained the prior permission of the Galton Institute, and completed both an undertaking for the use of archives and manuscripts and a request to see restricted access material, which includes information as to exactly what they wish to see and how they propose to use it. Material is ordered, at present, using the references provided by a word-processed handlist (finding aids are currently being converted into a CALM 2000 database, which will enable them to be made available for searching online), produced by the archivists, and consulted under supervision in the Poynter Room (rare materials reading area) of the Wellcome Library. The archivists are always happy to answer queries (though we do not undertake research) and to provide copies of lists.

Contact details:
Archives and Manuscripts
Research and Special Collections
Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine
183 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE
England UK
Phone 0207-611-8483/8486
Fax 0207-611-8703
Email [email protected]
Wellcome Library website: http://www.wellcomelibrary.org

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Henry Twitchin: An Account of the Society's Most Generous Benefactor
by Major Leonard Darwin, D.Sc.
Eugenics Review, Vol. XXII, No. 2.
1930 Jul; 22(2): 91–97

Henry Twitchin
Birth: 21 Feb 1867, Australia
Death: 19 Mar 1930 (aged 63), England
Burial: Golders Green Crematorium, Golders Green, London Borough of Barnet, Greater London, England

Up to this spring, a generous member of our Society had been in the habit of giving us £1,000 a year, a fact not widely known because, respecting his earnest desire that his name should not be disclosed, as little as possible was said about it. This reason for our silence, however, no longer exists; for our benefactor, Mr. Henry Twitchin, died on March 19th last, quite unexpectedly after an operation for appendicitis. By his will the Society becomes the residuary legatee of his estate, thus probably more than trebling the income to be received by us from this source. As he is likely for long, or for ever, to head the list of our benefactors, it is fitting that some account of the man himself should accompany this expression of deep gratitude for what he has done for eugenics.

Henry Twitchin was born on February 22st, 1867, at Shaw-cum-Donnington in Berkshire, his father and grandfather having been farmers in good circumstances, the latter indeed being described as 'gentleman' in the death certificate. There was in Berkshire a family of this name, which traced back to the middle of the seventeenth century, with arms on the tomb of one of them; and with this family our Twitchins were most probably connected, since the name of Andrew occurs in both pedigrees of this uncommon surname. Henry Twitchin's mother's name was Lovelock, her father being a maltster, this being the surname of yeoman families in Berkshire back to Elizabethan times; and the same is true of Northway, his paternal grandmother's name. We may, in a future issue, be able to give a pedigree of the Twitchin family for those interested in such matters. His immediate ancestry nearly all lived to advanced old age, and for the most part left no recorded signs of ill health. It is true that his father, another Henry, though living to the age of eighty-seven, retired from work when comparatively young, and was reported to have been always an invalid and very irritable, though with dignified, aristocratic manners when in a good temper. He was both a reader and an independent thinker, holding views considered very advanced in his days. Our Henry Twitchin also had an uncle who was deformed and not at all a desirable character. His mother was an amusing and courageous old lady of strong character; whilst his two sisters, who completed the family, and of whom he was very fond, both died young of consumption. Our benefactor himself suffered constantly from periods of depression, but must have been physically very strong. He left no near relatives. These details are here given with reference to his remarks, to be quoted later on, with regard to his own hereditary tendencies.

WEALTH FROM ANIMAL BREEDING

Henry Twitchin was educated at Newbury Grammar School, and then at Downton Agricultural College, where he did well, winning several prizes. His training on the land led him to think of emigrating, and the fact that his father was strict and unsympathetic confirmed his determination to leave England in spite of the opposition of all the family. Who supplied the funds is unknown, possibly a certain well-to-do relative with no children; but certain it is that he was able to sail for Western Australia before he was twenty-two years of age and to start sheep farming soon after his arrival. His stocks suffered heavily in some of the droughts; but, after visiting England to raise further funds, he sunk a large number of artesian wells on his property, which then began to prosper greatly. When in 1924 he sold his estates of Towera and Lyndon, comprising over a million acres of pastoral leases, it was described as the biggest sale of such property ever negotiated in Western Australia. In fact, after thirty-four years hard work he returned to England, having made a considerable fortune, but with his health seriously impaired.

In spite of his trying and constant occupations, Henry Twitchin evidently had time to think, and did think deeply on many problems, though with little assistance of any kind. Judging from certain notes found amongst papers, philosophy and religion occupied his thoughts a good deal at one time; though, as we shall see, it was to eugenics that his mind was most constantly directed. But to show that he looked to environment as well as to heredity it may be mentioned that by his will the British and the Western Australian societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals received legacies, whilst the following extract from these early rough notes may also be quoted with the same object. "I am quite aware that a vast proportion of human suffering is mainly due to preventable causes and in too many instances is perhaps a just penalty for their own delinquencies; but I have also seen in my own family connection an amount of suffering patiently endured, for which no cause could be assigned and by those who to our view were least deserving of it, that has made a deep impression on me." Amongst these papers was found the telegram, which he had kept for thirty-eight years, announcing the death of his sister; and we may guess that it was her he had in his mind when he wrote these words.

OUR USE OF THE MONEY

Turning to the advantages which will accrue to the Society under the terms of Mr. Twitchin's will, some paragraphs of which will be quoted later on, the Society is placed under no "legal obligations" as to the way in which his magnificent bequest is to be spent. Nevertheless, I wish to take this opportunity of appealing to our Councils in the future, when deciding on the uses to which this income shall be put, always at all events to take into consideration -- I say no more than that -- what were the wishes and views of our great benefactor. Though I make this appeal, it is, I am sure, unnecessary, because all members of our Society are sure always to regard the matter in this light. What is desirable is to ascertain what these wishes and views really were.

As to the general opinions held by Mr. Twitchin in regard to eugenics, and his reason for holding them, they may perhaps best be gathered from the following extracts from his private correspondence with me. In reading them it must, however, be remembered that the earliest letters were written from Towera, a remote pastoral station in Western Australia, that none of them were intended for publication, and that if he had had the least idea that they would ever appear in print, he would probably have expressed himself more guardedly. His first letter to me was dated April 4, 1922, and deals largely with questions of business. The passages which concern us here run as follows:

HIS INTEREST IN EUGENICS

"I first became interested in Eugenics about 25 years ago, when the idea of applying the principle we had for a long time made use of in improving our farm stock to the improvement of the human family occurred to me just as originally as it did to the Founder of our Society, or the Greeks of old, and no doubt to many others. This is not to be wondered at when it is known that I am descended from a long line of countrymen at home, some of whom helped to make our domestic animals what they are to-day, that I was live stock prizeman at the Downton Farming School in 1888, and since then have devoted my whole life to the breeding of live stock (over 40,000 last year), in which as you know, under the best practice, the principle of eugenics is the controlling factor.

"Although my occupation alone would naturally have led me to this conclusion, it was the fact that I was born of unsound parents and inherited their weaknesses and consequently have suffered thereby, that first forced this question upon me. Isolated as I was in what was then the Back Country here, I had no opportunity of discussing it with people who were likely to know what had already been done to make the idea of use to the world, although it was certainly explained to one or two of my more enlightened neighbours, and it was years afterwards that I met with a reference in some paper (The Times Weekly probably) to the work of the late Henry [Francis] Galton, and of the founding of the Eugenics Education Society.

"Applying the great principle, as I was constantly doing in my work, it was natural perhaps for me to see no difficulty in doing the same at once with men and women. And I was then advocating the immediate introduction of legislation in all civilised countries prohibiting the propagation of the unfit from any cause. But after reading some of the publications by the Society and other works on the subject, I realized that the great majority of the people were not ready for such a revolutionary change, and that the best course to bring about the desired improvement was to do as the Society was doing and educate, if possible, the masses to see the inestimable advantage of adopting the principle and gradually enforce control.

"Believing in practice as well as in principle, I never married, although better fitted to do so probably than fully one-half of those who do -- and being the last of my family I have no relatives having any claim on my property I, in 1912, made my Will -- after providing for certain legacies -- in favour of our Society, for the carrying on of the propaganda which I believe to be by far the most urgent and important work possible in human endeavour. . . .

HIS LEGITIMATE EXPECTATIONS

As it is of some importance to show in what ways Mr. Twitchin was led to believe that his bequest would be spent, it may be as well here to quote part of my reply to the above letter. It was dated June 9th, 1922, and ran as follows:

"As to the methods of utilising any further funds coming under the influence or control of our Society, that is a point on which I could say a great deal, and is one on which you will probably wish to hear something. We now often miss an opportunity of getting a lecture delivered on eugenics because we cannot afford to give any remuneration to our lecturers. If we could pay even a moderate fee, we should soon get together a capable band of lecturers, and, being able to comply with any demand, the work in this direction would soon be largely increased. Our Review, as a method of propaganda, would be improved if we could afford to pay something to our contributors. Research in certain directions is at a standstill for want of funds. I have in my mind especially certain half-finished work in connection with the pedigrees of London pauper stock, which would be valuable from a scientific point of view, and most helpful to lecturers to illustrate existing evils due to heredity. Lastly, our staff is ill-paid and inadequate, which makes all progress difficult. This is perhaps sufficient to show how greatly the whole position might be strengthened were more funds available. There is no institution throughout the world known to me which is carrying on such an active eugenic propaganda as we should desire to initiate had we the means; and for any Society to set a proper example in this respect might produce beneficial results to posterity of incalculable magnitude."

It must be remembered that in 1922 we were not receiving £1,000 a year as a gift from Mr. Twitchin, as we did in many later years.

A few more extracts from Mr. Twitchin's letters will now be given:

Perth, W. Australia, Nov. 19th, 1923. -- "You gave me some account of your more recent endeavours in the great cause, more particularly in securing a share of the Rockefeller bequest for the closer study of heredity in England, which was an excellent idea. But I suppose the money would have to be devoted to the purpose specified and might not be used for general propaganda. I trust the special effort you were making to increase the membership of the Society was successful, as it is more important to have many people interested in our teaching than to have the money of the few....

The last sentence is interesting as coming from one who has bequeathed such a large sum for the furtherance of eugenics.

The next quotation is dated April 30th, 1926, by which time he had come to live at the Villa Eugene at Nice. (He told me laughingly that the name of his house, though appropriate, was not given to it by himself.)

"The cinema and broadcasting seem to me to be the best means of reaching the largest number of people, though articles in the popular press would be read by a good many."

BIRTH CONTROL AND STERILIZATION

Villa Eugene, Dec. 20th, 1926. -- "Progress in practical eugenics measures is still very slow, although it appears to be dawning on some public authorities that sterilization is the only means to help them out of their financial difficulties in the case of the feeble-minded. Perhaps after thinking about it for another ten years it will be adopted. This is thoroughly British. Of course, we cannot begin operating until the spirit moves a sufficient majority to vote for it. In the meantime, as the Government will not do anything to establish public clinics for teaching birth control methods, there is nothing, as I understand the law, to prevent private effort in this direction. There seems little doubt that the poor are quite ready to practise contraception if they are only taught how to do it; although I fear that only the best of the poor would trouble to learn. Those we really want to stop breeding are too careless and improvident. Some day perhaps they will be sterilized without their consent."

Villa Eugene, April 10th, 1927. -- "Referring to your long letter on the subject, you quote Pearson as saying that 'the effect of Birth Control up till now [the time he wrote] has been simply disastrous.' But at that time only the better classes practised it, and withholding the knowledge from the inferior classes will not stop the practice in the higher. It would in fact have a tendency to increase the latter, as the support of the unemployed falls on them and renders them less able to keep their own families. I quite agree with the principles laid down in the Society's outline of a Eugenic Policy under Conception Control [this has been somewhat modified since these words were written]. Paragraph 3 covers the whole question as far as Britain is concerned. The time has come when owing to economic changes -- loss of trade, etc. -- which are likely to be permanent, the children of so many people cannot be raised 'in accordance with a certain minimum (decent) standard of civilization.' Perhaps no one but those who have had the management of large stock farms fully realize the practical side of this question. We know the utter madness of going on breeding up when the Ranch is fully stocked and there is no, or insufficient, outlet for the surplus....If it is to do any good we must banish sentiment and act drastically. We must not consider the rights of individuals over-much -- a lunatic in my opinion has no rights -- when the vital interests of the State are at stake."

EUGENICS AND 'STOCKYARD METHODS'

Chambord, France, Aug. 26th, 1927. -- "I should not if I were you condemn 'stockyard methods,' so called, so severely. What are they but the practice of the very essence of eugenic principles -- the prevention of the breeding of the unfit and making it possible for only the best types to do so. It may be good policy for the present not to go too far, but if eugenic teaching is ever to do any practical good for the human family, stronger measures will have to be taken than any so far advocated."

Villa Eugene, Oct. 30th, 1928. -- "I have read your new book [What is Eugenics?] and agree with most of the arguments in it, but still think that in combating a great social evil we should not be over scrupulous as to the means by which we hope to bring about an improvement, and that as birth control in some form is the only practicable way to this end, it should be enforced by the authority of the nation regardless of the likes and dislikes of those who haven't the intelligence to know what is good for them or the contrary. Pro bono is still supposed to be a principle of democracies. Your smaller book is undoubtedly more suitable for the great majority of readers than the larger one and ... I should be glad to subscribe for say 1,000 copies to be sent to distributing centres in large towns, if you approve the proposal."

It gives me great pleasure to think that this plan was carried out, the copies being sent at his suggestion to public and other libraries at home and in the Dominions. Of course he may have been mistaken as to the value of that book; but we cannot be mistaken in believing that his object was to place a book capable of being widely understood where it would be widely accessible.

Villa Eugene, June 18th, 1929. -- "The other book you sent me, Posterity, is I think a most useful contribution to the subject, very clearly and concisely stated and going a little further than you do in suggesting immediate remedies. . . . The late Health Minister could only propose keeping mental deficients (300,000) in colonies and after some training letting them out under supervision as though they could then be prevented from propagating. Could anything be more childish? ... Progress is slow, but the only way is to keep pegging away like a patient fisherman hoping for a bite sooner or later. I think we must look for the greatest developments in the newer countries like America, where deep-rooted prejudice is not so strong as it is in our country; and yet it is here that eugenic reform is most needed to get rid of the great burden of the unemployed."

Geneva, July 21st, 1929. -- "I certainly agree with you that our Society should advocate all measures likely to improve the race rather than concentrate on one only."

TWENTY YEARS OF THOUGHT

Passing on to consider what were Mr. Twitchin's more definitely expressed wishes, several wills were made by him in which his intentions of benefiting eugenics were expressed, the first one being signed in 1912. At about that same time he wrote a letter, from which the following extracts are taken, to be held for safe keeping with that will by the Public Trustee:

"Lest it should be considered that in bequeathing the whole of the residue of my estate, as I have done, for the purposes of furthering the knowledge and, I trust, in time securing the adoption of the principles of eugenics both in England and throughout the world, I have acted hastily.... I am desirous of mentioning by letter to you that .... I have for nearly 20 years past taken the keenest interest in all aspects of eugenics and have read and thought much upon the subject and, in the result, I am thoroughly convinced that to the extent the knowledge of the science is brought home to the people and its principles acted on and enforced, enormous beneficial results must inevitably follow, and it is to aid and assist in this that I very thankfully devote the bulk of my property."

When all the available evidence has been considered, it will be agreed, I believe, that the word "furthering," which occurs at the beginning of this last extract, is used in much the same sense as the phrase about bringing "home to the people," which is used later on. In fact I submit that it was the wish for a wide dissemination of already accepted eugenic truths which mainly actuated the writer of this letter.

In this will of 1912, and also in one of 1919, both of which were cancelled, Mr. Twitchin gave power to the Public Trustee as sole executor to pass on any part of the residuary estate to the Eugenics Education Society or to any society having the same or similar objects [the italics are mine] or, if the Society was not carrying on its work efficiently, to form a trust the income from which should at all times "be employed in the furtherance of the knowledge and principles of the science of eugenics." Whatever may have been the exact meaning intended to be attached to these last quoted words, they are not repeated in the will of 1926, in which the Eugenics Education Society was made residuary legatee in an unqualified manner. In 1922 a codicil was signed making the President of our Society a co-executor with the Public Trustee, who was at the same time authorized to discuss the terms of the will with myself. In the will of 1926 I was personally appointed, together with Sir Ernest Allen, to be co-executors with the Public Trustee, the President of the Society to act in my place if I failed. Finally, Mr. Twitchin signed a codicil on the day of his death which added his French estate to the property passing to our Society. Thus we see in these 18 years, from 1912 to 1930, signs of a steady increase both in his wish that his property should be used in "furthering the objects of the Society" and in his trust in our efficiency. The production of such an effect on the mind of an impartial and intensely interested observer cannot, to say the least, be made the foundation for an argument in favour of any drastic change in our policy or in our objects.

PRACTICE OUR MAIN OBJECT

But what are our objects? Or rather, what had Mr. Twitchin been induced to believe them to be? In our Memorandum of Association they are set forth in the most authoritative manner under a number of headings, most of them dealing only with the business aspects of our proceedings. The first four of these headings, which alone concern us here, runs as follows:

"(1) The promotion of the science of eugenics; this science including the study of the laws of human life in so far as they concern human heredity and the conservation, evolution, and progress of the human race." These words were doubtless put in to permit any research being undertaken in connection with any eugenic question. But they cannot be quoted as giving any indication of Mr. Twitchin's views or wishes; for they were written after he signed his last will, and I have no reason to suppose that he ever saw them.

In the Memorandum then follow three other headings, which are both in substance and in words nearly identical with the statement of our objects which has appeared almost unchanged in every issue of our Review since its publication began. It was from that source that Mr. Twitchin most probably obtained his first information about us, and it is to these words in our Review that we ought to look if we wish to know what our benefactor had been led to regard as being our objects. They run as follows: -- "(1) Persistently to set forth the National importance of eugenics in order to modify public opinion and create a sense of responsibility in respect of bringing all matters pertaining to parenthood under the dominion of eugenic ideals. (2) To spread a knowledge of the laws of heredity so far as they are surely known and so far as that knowledge may effect the improvement of the race. (3) To further eugenic teaching at home, in the schools, and elsewhere."

We can here find no foundation for a belief that research was held by us to be one of our objects. Knowledge in so far as surely known is alluded to, but no mention is made of any increase in our knowledge. If we undertake research, which we are certainly at liberty to do, we must do so under the powers given us by our Memorandum of Association, which Mr. Twitchin probably never saw.

The words in the REVIEW concerning "all matters pertaining to parenthood" certainly indicate that we are very practical in many of our aims. That this is so is confirmed by the statement concerning the furtherance of teaching "at home, in the schools, and elsewhere." Home comes first, and does not this give the idea that our first object is to spread eugenic thought broadcast and as widely as possible? Schools come next and universities are not mentioned. May not Mr. Twitchin have been led to suppose that we regarded universities as centres from which eugenic light would automatically flow in all directions and not as dark places needing illumination by independent societies? To encourage the production, publication, and distribution of literature suitable both for schools and for the spread of eugenic thought in homes certainly comes within the declared scope of our work.

OUR LEGAL FREEDOM

The following are the operative words of Mr. Twitchin's will of 1926 as far as it affects the "Eugenics Education Society": "It is my desire that the aforesaid bequest should constitute a permanent fund and that the income derived therefrom should alone be used for furthering the objects of the Society, including the support of branches of the Society, but I expressly direct that such desire shall not impose a legal obligation on the Society or prevent the expenditure of capital if such expenditure is deemed expedient at any time." Our Society cannot now change its objects as set forth in the Memorandum of Association, whilst when these words were written they could be altered by a two-thirds majority at any annual or special meeting of the Society. Hence I submit that the words of the will may be fairly interpreted as expressing a hope, but not a command, that we shall as a general rule not part with the control over the income arising from this bequest, and that we shall expend it in what were then declared to be the objects of the Society.

What Mr. Twitchin evidently desired was that the income derived from the money which he had won by many years of hard work in a trying climate should be used for the promotion of effective measures of eugenic reform. He knew that our knowledge of the laws of heredity had been sufficient to enable us to maintain and improve the qualities of our cattle; and this led him to feel sure that it was also sufficient to justify practical steps being taken in order to improve the inborn qualities of our nation. The main difficulty which he foresaw was the persuasion of the public of the immense advantages thus to be obtained; and he held that, to overcome popular prejudices, a persistent propaganda should be maintained by persons who had given the subject adequate attention. The choice between many legitimate ways of spending our newly-acquired income will always be open to our Council; for Mr. Twitchin showed his confidence in our judgment by not tying our hands at all tightly. This trust in us, however, merely strengthens the obligation of honour to follow the path indicated by him so long as we agree that it leads to the end he had in view, namely the advancement of mankind in the future.

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Pirbright Institute
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/28/20

The Pirbright Institute (Previously: Institute for Animal Health)
Abbreviation: N/A
Formation: 1987
Legal status Government-funded research institute (registered charity)
Purpose Farm animal health and diseases in the UK
Location
Ash Road, Pirbright, Surrey, England
Region served: UK
Membership: Around 350 staff - half researchers, half operations
Director: Dr Bryan Charleston
Parent organization: BBSRC
Affiliations: DEFRA [Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs]
Budget: c. £30 m
Website: http://www.pirbright.ac.uk

The Pirbright Institute (formerly the Institute for Animal Health) is a research institute in Surrey, England, dedicated to the study of infectious diseases of farm animals. It forms part of the UK government's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). The Institute employs scientists, vets, PhD students and operations staff.

History

It began in 1914 to test cows for tuberculosis. More buildings were added in 1925. Compton was established by the Agricultural Research Council in 1937. Pirbright became a research institute in 1939 and Compton in 1942. The Houghton Poultry Research Station at Houghton, Cambridgeshire was established in 1948. In 1963 Pirbright became the Animal Virus Research Institute and Compton became the Institute for Research on Animal Diseases. The Neuropathogenesis Unit (NPU) was established in Edinburgh in 1981. This became part of the Roslin Institute in 2007.

In 1987, Compton, Houghton and Pirbright became the Institute for Animal Health, being funded by BBSRC. Houghton closed in 1992, operations at Compton are being rapidly wound down with the site due to close in 2015.

The Edward Jenner Institute for Vaccine Research was sited at Compton until October 2005.

Significant investment (over £170 million) is taking place at Pirbright with the development of new world class laboratory and animal facilities. The Institute has been known as "The Pirbright Institute" since October 2012.

On 14 June 2019 the largest stock of the rinderpest virus was destroyed at the Pirbright Institute.[1]

Directors of note

Dr John Burns Brooksby 1964 until 1980[2]

Structure

The work previously carried out at Compton has either moved out to the university sector, ended or has been transferred to the Pirbright Site. The Compton site currently carries out work on endemic (commonplace) animal diseases including some Avian Viruses and a small amount of Bovine Immunology whilst Pirbright works on exotic (unusual) animal diseases (usually caused by virus outbreaks). Pirbright has National and International Reference Laboratories of diseases.

Funding

25% of its income comes from a core grant from the BBSRC of around £11m. Around 50% comes from research grants from related government organisations, such as DEFRA, or industry and charities (such as the Wellcome Trust). The remaining 25% comes from direct payments for work carried out.

Function

The Pirbright Institute carries out research, diagnostics and surveillance viruses carried by animals, such as foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV), African swine fever, bluetongue, lumpy skin disease and avian and swine flu farm animals. Understanding of viruses comes from molecular biology.

It carries out surveillance activities on farm animal health and disease movement in the UK.

Location

The Institute had two sites at:

• Compton in Berkshire - This was closed in early 2016 and services relocated to Pirbright where new facilities had been constructed.
• Pirbright in Surrey — shared with commercial company Merial

See also

• 2007 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak
• World Organisation for Animal Health
• Bluetongue disease
• Veterinary Laboratories Agency (now part of the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency)
• Animal Health (now part of the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency)
• Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (an Executive Agency of the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

References

1. "Killer virus destroyed by UK lab". 14 June 2019. Retrieved 14 June 2019.
2. http://rsbm.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... 7.full.pdf

External links

• Official website

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A. K. Chesterton
by Wikipedia
3/28/20


A. K. Chesterton, MC
Personal details
Born: Arthur Kenneth Chesterton, 1 May 1899, Krugersdorp, South African Republic
Died: 16 August 1973 (aged 74), London, United Kingdom
Political party: British Union of Fascists (1933–1938); National Front (from 1967)
Relations: G. K. Chesterton (second cousin)

Arthur Kenneth Chesterton MC (1 May 1899 – 16 August 1973) was a journalist and political activist, born at Krugersdorp, near Johannesburg, in the Transvaal Republic. He was involved in the founding of several far-right movements in opposition to the break-up of the British Empire. He supported a strong anti-immigration stance thereafter as increasing numbers of former British subjects migrated to the United Kingdom.

The author G. K. Chesterton was his second cousin.

Early life

Born in Krugersdorp, South African Republic, A. K. Chesterton was sent to Berkhamsted School in England but persuaded his parents to let him return to South Africa in 1915. In October 1915 he added four years to his age and joined the British Army, who posted him to German East Africa, where he almost died of malaria and dysentery. After being commissioned as a second lieutenant in August 1918,[1] he served on the Western Front with the London Regiment and won the Military Cross.[2] His war experience was crucial to his repudiation of democracy.

After the war, he worked as a journalist for The Star in Johannesburg. He then secured a job with the Stratford-upon-Avon Herald in England, where, as theatre critic from 1925 to 1929, he cultivated his aesthetic sense of societal decadence and cultural decline.

For the next four years, according to Chesterton's biographer, David Baker:

"he tilted at windmills and sharpened his skills as a controversialist while the Great Depression deepened and the bankruptcy of liberal and capitalist democracy became apparent. The corporate state, he came to believe, would rule in the interests of the whole nation, whereas democracy was the plaything of special interests and privilege."[3]

Politics

Moving to London and marrying a Fabian socialist and pacifist, Chesterton lived near the headquarters of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF). He took to dropping by for conversation and argument, and by late 1933 he had joined the movement. He became the director of publicity and propaganda and chief organiser for the Midlands.

In 1936, alcoholism and overwork led to a nervous breakdown. He consulted a German neurologist and during 1936 and 1937 lived in Germany. After returning to Britain he was appointed editor of the Blackshirt, the official BUF newspaper. This position provided a pulpit for his increasingly anti-Semitic rhetoric.

He left the BUF in 1938, disillusioned, but continued to be active in far-right politics by joining the Nordic League and serving as editor of Lord Lymington's right-wing journal, the New Pioneer.

The Nordic League was a far right organisation in the United Kingdom from 1935 to 1939 that sought to serve as a co-ordinating body for the various extremist movements whilst also seeking to promote Nazism.

-- Nordic League, by Wikipedia

Chesterton became a member of the Right Club, a group founded in May 1939 to consolidate existing right-wing British organizations into a unified body. Archibald Ramsay, founder of the Right Club, explained its ideology and purpose:

"The main object of the Right Club was to oppose and expose the activities of Organized Jewry, in the light of the evidence which came into my possession in 1938. Our first objective was to clear the Conservative Party of Jewish influence, and the character of our membership and meetings were strictly in keeping with this objective."[4]

In 1939, Chesterton re-enlisted in the British Army after the outbreak of war. He served in East Africa, but was invalided out in 1943 due to poor health. He returned to Britain and launched the short-lived National Front after Victory Group, a coalition that included the British Peoples Party. He became deputy editor of the publication Truth.

He lived again in Africa for a short time, but soon returned to Britain where he established the League of Empire Loyalists in 1954. The League was a pressure group against the increasing dissolution of the British Empire, and was known at the time for stunts at Conservative Party meetings and conferences. These included hiding underneath the platform overnight to emerge during the conference to put across points. The League had support from some Conservative Party members, but they were disliked by the leadership.

About this time, Chesterton was appointed by Lord Beaverbrook as a literary adviser, contributing to the Daily Mail and the Sunday Express. He also wrote Beaverbrook's autobiography, Don't Trust to Luck.[5]

Chesterton founded and edited the magazine Candour, which he issued for the rest of his life, and which is still published today.[6]

Chesterton co-founded the National Front (NF) in 1967, and later became its Policy Director.[7] He tried to exclude neo-Nazis from movements such as the National Socialist Movement and the Greater Britain Movement from joining the NF, but was unsuccessful. Upon stepping down the first of several long, inter-factional disputes took place within the NF which frequently affected its policies in ways of which Chesterton did not approve. Today, the NF describes itself as a "white nationalist organisation founded in 1967 in opposition to multi-racialism and immigration".[8]

Writings

Amongst Chesterton's works are Portrait of a Leader (1937), a hagiography of Mosley; Why I left Mosley (1938), which broke from his earlier work; The Tragedy of Anti-Semitism (1948) in which he distanced himself from this form of prejudice; and The New Unhappy Lords, a diatribe against international finance.

Later life and death

The last 30 years of Chesterton's life were spent in a modest flat in South Croydon with his wife, Doris. He died on 16 August 1973.

See also

• Candour

References

1. "No. 30824". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 July 1918. p. 9101.
2. "No. 31480". The London Gazette (Supplement). 29 July 1919. p. 9722.
3. David Baker Ideology of Obsession: A. K. Chesterton and British Fascism, 1996, I. B. Tauris (UK)/Macmillan (US)ISBN 1-86064-073-7
4. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk Archived 27 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine, article on Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminister, retrieved 30 August 2012,
5. Hugh McNeile (2014). The history of the League of Empire Loyalists and Candour. The A.K Chesterton Trust. p. 14. ISBN 0957540345.
6. Candour, BM Candour, London, WC1N 3XX
7. —
 Sue Onslow (10 September 2009). Cold War in Southern Africa: White Power, Black Liberation. Routledge. p. 91. ISBN 978-1-135-21933-8.
 David Butler (1 February 1986). British Political Facts 1900–1985. Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 169. ISBN 978-1-349-18083-7.
8. Julia Verse (March 2014). Undoing Irishness: Antirassistische Perspektiven in der Republik Irland. transcript Verlag. p. 65. ISBN 978-3-8394-1682-2.

External links

• Amok-Run of the Sexologist Chapter 6 of A. K. Chesterton's, Facing the Abyss.
• Candour & A.K. Chesterton Trust Website
• The New Unhappy Lords - A.K. Chesterton's book online at the Internet Archive

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Nordic League
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/28/20

The Nordic League was a far right organisation in the United Kingdom from 1935 to 1939 that sought to serve as a co-ordinating body for the various extremist movements whilst also seeking to promote Nazism. The League was a private organisation that did not organise any public events.[1]

Development

The Nordic League (NL) originated in 1935 when agents of Alfred Rosenberg's Nordische Gesellschaft arrived in Britain to establish a UK version of their movement.[2] The main force behind this new group was Unionist MP Archibald Maule Ramsay who chaired the group's 14-man leadership council.[3] The group's constitution described it as an "association of race conscious Britons" and sought to co-ordinate all far-right and fascist movements whilst giving particular emphasis to anti-Semitism.[3]

The League sought to unite leading figures from across the far right, as demonstrated in April 1939 when a meeting addressed by Ramsay was chaired by a member of the British Union of Fascists who was supported by former British Fascists president R. B. D. Blakeney and Imperial Fascist League member E. H. Cole.[1] Other leading members included J. F. C. Fuller, the United Empire Fascist Party leader and Nazi agent Serocold Skeels, Henry Hamilton Beamish, Arnold Leese and P. J. Ridout.[3] The latter was credited with helping to popularise the NL's slogan "Perish Judah", which was frequently rendered "P.J." in public.[4]

BUF leader Oswald Mosley, fearful of being too closely associated with the League's extremist rhetoric, did not join but he permitted party members to do so which the likes of Fuller, Robert Gordon-Canning and Oliver C. Gilbert did readily.[2] As a result of these links the BUF was able to absorb the National Socialist Workers Party, a small group led by NL member Lieutenant-Colonel Graham Seton-Hutchison.[5]

Front groups

The NL was closely linked to the White Knights of Britain, a secret society otherwise known as the Hooded Men with ritual initiation based on Freemasonry and compared to the Ku Klux Klan that was active from 1935 to 1937.[6]The White Knights and the NL shared the same building as their headquarters.[2] Another group, the Militant Christian Patriots, that was active after the Munich Crisis urging Neville Chamberlain not to become involved in a "Jewish war", was also closely connected to the NL and said by MI5 to be a front organisation.[3] By using this group and another front organisation, the Liberty Restoration League, the NL was able to ensure that high-ranking figures such as the Duke of Wellington, the Duchess of Hamilton, Baron Brocket, and Michael O'Dwyer became involved in their movement.[5]

Response and demise

The NL came under increasing scrutiny after Kristallnacht, particularly for the violence of Ramsay, William Joyce and A. K. Chesterton in their anti-Semitic speeches.[7] Others such as Elwin Wright, who until 1937 was secretary of the Anglo-German Fellowship, called for the shooting of Jews, whilst Commander E. H. Cole condemned the House of Commons as being full of "bastardised Jewish swine".[7] However, such extremist language worked against the NL because its speakers were seen by the public at large as quite mad and so their pro-appeasement arguments were ignored.[8]

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, two leading members, T. Victor-Rowe and Oliver Gilbert, were interned, and the NL largely went into abeyance, with members joining other, more public, anti-war groups.[8] The League had officially disbanded as soon as war was declared although it continued to meet secretly at Gilbert's house until his arrest in late September 1939.[9] Two of its members, Joyce and Margaret Bothamley, left Britain for Nazi Germany after the outbreak of war.[10] Given the association of the NL with Nazism, BUF organiser Alexander Raven Thomson even suggested that Mosley publicly denounce the League as traitors in an attempt to present a more patriotic image, although Defence Regulation 18B came into force before this could be attempted.[11]

References

1. Benewick, p. 289
2. Dorril, p. 425
3. Thurlow, p. 80
4. Thurlow, p. 81
5. Dorril, p. 426
6. Thurlow, pp. 80-81
7. Thurlow, p. 82
8. Thurlow, p. 83
9. Dorril, p. 465
10. Thurlow, pp. 170-171
11. Dorril, p. 493

Bibliography

• Benewick, Robert, Political Violence and Public Order, Allan Lane, 1969
• Dorril, Stephen, Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley & British Fascism, Penguin Books, 2007
• Thurlow, Richard, Fascism in Britain: A History, 1918-1985, Basil Blackwell, 1987

External links

• Spartacus on the Nordic League
• Chronicles of the British Far Right on the White Knights of Britain and Nordic League

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Eugenics Record Office
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/28/20

As to the many institutions in America where admirable scientific work is being carried on in this field, there is one which I must, for two reasons, be allowed on this occasion to pick out for special mention, and that is the Eugenics Record Office, now a department of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, located on Long Island, New York. In the first place, it has for many years been under the direction of Charles B. Davenport, the President of this Congress, with Harry H. Laughlin, Secretary to the Congress, in immediate charge; and during that time excellent work has there been accomplished. In the second place, its initiation was made possible to a large extent by the generosity of Mrs. E. H. Harriman; and I should like to call the attention of the women of America to the fact that many opportunities still exist in their country for promoting national progress through the agency of eugenics; for none of the institutions concerned is too wealthy.

-- What is Eugenics?, by Leonard Darwin

The Eugenics Record Office (ERO), located in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, United States, was a research institute that gathered biological and social information about the American population, serving as a center for eugenics and human heredity research from 1910 to 1939. It was established by the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Station for Experimental Evolution, and subsequently administered by its Department of Genetics.[1]

Both its founder, Charles Benedict Davenport, and its director, Harry H. Laughlin, were major contributors to the field of eugenics in the United States. Its mission was to collect substantial information on the ancestry of the American population, to produce propaganda that was made to fuel the eugenics movement, and to promote of the idea of race-betterment.

History

The eugenics movement was popular and viewed as progressive in the early-twentieth-century United States.[2] Charles Davenport was one of the leaders of this campaign and avidly believed that it was necessary to apply Mendelian Genetics principles to humans. Davenport's wife, Gertrude Davenport, was also an important figure in this movement and the establishment of the ERO.[3] Gertrude Davenport was an embryologist and a geneticist who wrote papers with her husband supporting the idea that Mendelian genetics theories applied to humans.

Supported by the argument that the eugenics office would collect information for human genetics research, Davenport convinced the Carnegie Institute to establish the ERO.[4] He was well connected to wealthy people during the time and he lobbied them to finance his vision of the ERO. The ERO was financed primarily by Mary Harriman (widow of railroad baron E. H. Harriman),[5] the Rockefeller family, and then the Carnegie Institution until 1939. In 1935 the Carnegie Institution sent a team to review the ERO's work, and as a result the ERO was ordered to stop all work. In 1939 the Carnegie Institution's new President, Vannevar Bush, forced Laughlin's retirement and withdrew funding for the ERO entirely, leading to its closure at the end of that year.[6]

Superintendent Harry H. Laughlin, formerly a school superintendent in Iowa, held a position akin to that of an assistant director of the ERO. Charles Davenport appointed Laughlin as a head of the ERO due to Laughlin's extensive knowledge about breeding and the implementation of this knowledge in humans.[7] Under the direction of Laughlin, the ERO advocated laws that led to the forced sterilization of many Americans it categorized as 'socially inadequate'.[8]

The endeavors of the Eugenics Record Office were facilitated by the work of various committees. The Committee on Inheritance of Mental Traits included among its members Robert M. Yerkes and Edward L. Thorndike.[9] The Committee on Heredity of Deafmutism included Alexander Graham Bell. Harry H. Laughlin was on the Committee on Sterilization, and the Committee on the Heredity of the Feeble Minded included, among others, Henry Herbert Goddard. Other prominent board members included scientists like Irving Fisher, William E. Castle, and Adolf Meyer.

In the 1920s, the ERO merged with the Station for Experimental Evolution and adopted the name of the Department of Genetics of the Carnegie Institute.[10]

Eventually, the ERO closed on December 1939 in part due to the disapproval it received. The information that had been collected by the ERO was distributed amongst other genetic research based organizations and collections services.[1]

The ERO's reports, articles, charts, and pedigrees were considered scientific facts in their day, but have since been discredited. In 1944 its records were transferred to the Charles Fremont Dight Institute for the Promotion of Human Genetics at the University of Minnesota. When the Dight Institute closed in 1991, the genealogical material was filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah and given to the Center for Human Genetics. The non-genealogical material was not filmed and was given to the American Philosophical Society Library. The American Philosophical Society has a copy of the microfilm as well. Today, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory maintains the full historical records, communications and artifacts of the ERO for historical,[11] teaching and research purposes. The documents are housed in a campus archived and can be accessed online[12] and in a series of multimedia websites.[13]

Methods

The ERO collected research mostly through questionnaires. These questionnaires asked questions which described the characteristics of individual people and their families. These characteristics ranged from physical to temperamental properties. Many of these questionnaires were collected by field workers, usually educated women (who had few other jobs open to them), who would go door-to-door asking people to fill out this information. Many of these women had bachelor's degrees in biology, and graduate school degrees were not uncommon.[14] Additionally, the ERO had other methods of collecting these questionnaires such as sending them through the mail, and promoting them as methods for families to learn about their genetic lineage and family history.[1]

The research collected by these field workers provided much of the information which facilitated the passage of several laws during the 1920s.[1]

The ERO disseminated its information and its message via a variety of outlets. These included a journal called Eugenical News, posters with propaganda full messages about intelligent breeding, and pamphlets with information on the movement.[10]

Controversy

Eugenics was and continues to be a controversial issue due to the pressure radical eugenicists put on the government to pass legislation that would restrict the liberties of the people who had traits that could be considered undesirable.[1] Specifically, the ERO dedicated its resources to the restriction of immigrants and the forced sterilization of individuals with undesirable characteristics. They promoted their ideas through the distribution of propaganda that came in the form of images and information packets.

Something else that caused tension within and surrounding the ERO was Harry H. Laughlin's radical policy suggestions. He was known for presenting fraudulent evidence to support policies of forced sterilization and was known for dogmatism. Furthermore, the rise of Nazism in the 1930s and their use of and belief in eugenics led to opposition to the American program. The ERO finally being closed in 1939.[15]

References

1. Tom. "Eugenics Record Office - Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory - Library & Archives". library.cshl.edu. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
2. "Haunted Files: The Eugenics Record Office (October 3, 2014 – March 13, 2015) – Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU". apa.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
3. "The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (1910-1939) | The Embryo Project Encyclopedia". embryo.asu.edu. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
4. Allen, Garland E. (1986-01-01). "The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, 1910-1940: An Essay in Institutional History". Osiris. 2: 225–264. doi:10.1086/368657. JSTOR 301835. PMID 11621591.
5. Comfort, Nathaniel C. (2009-06-30). The Tangled Field: Barbara... ISBN 9780674029828. Retrieved 2011-02-03.
6. See Jan A. Witkowski, "Charles Benedict Davenport, 1866-1944," in Jan A. Witkowski and John R. Inglis, eds., Davenport’s Dream: 21st Century Reflections on Heredity and Eugenics (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2008), p. 52.
7. "The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (1910-1939) | The Embryo Project Encyclopedia". embryo.asu.edu. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
8. Wilson, Philip K (2002). "Harry Laughlin's eugenic crusade to control the 'socially inadequate' in Progressive Era America". Patterns of Prejudice. 36 (1): 49–67. doi:10.1080/003132202128811367. ISSN 0031-322X.
9. Zenderland, Leila (2001), Measuring Minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the Origins of American Intelligence Testing, New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 164.
10. Office, Eugenics Record (2000-09-01). "Eugenics Record Office Records". Retrieved 2017-04-21.
11. See Daniel J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity (Alfred A. Knopf, 1985); Elof A. Carlson: The Unfit: The History of a Bad Idea (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2001); Jan A. Witkowski and John R. Inglis, eds., Davenport’s Dream: 21st Century Reflections on Heredity and Eugenics (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2008)
12. CSHL Archives general search: “eugenics” [1] Carnegie Institution of Washington Eugenics Record Office Collection: [2]Charles B. Davenport Collection: [3] The study of human heredity; Methods of collecting, charting, and analyzing data: [4]The Eugenics Record Office at the end of twenty-seven months work: [5]
13. DNALC web pages on Eugenics: [6]; DNALC Image Archives on the Eugenics Movement: [7]; [8]; DNALC Chronicle of eugenics: [9];
14. "The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (1910-1939) | The Embryo Project Encyclopedia". embryo.asu.edu. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
15. "EugenicsArchive". http://www.eugenicsarchive.org. Retrieved 2017-04-21.

Further reading

• Black, Edwin (2003). War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race. New York; London: Four Walls Eight Windows. ISBN 1-56858-258-7.
• Karier, Clarence J, "Testing for Order and Control in the Corporate Liberal State", in Karier, CJ; Violas, P; Spring, J (eds.), Roots of Crisis: American Education in the Twentieth Century, pp. 108–37 [112].
• Kevles, Daniel J (2001), In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity, Cambridge, MA, US: Harvard University Press.

External links

• Eugenics Archive – features much material from the ERO archives.
• Eugenics Records Office (finding aid), American Philosophical Society Library.
• ERO (index), American Philosophical Society Library, archived from the original on 2004-10-12, retrieved 2004-10-21.

*************************************

Eugenics Record Office
by Archives at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Accessed: 3/29/20



This collection was generated by the Eugenics Record Office which was created as a department of the Carnegie Institution of Washington Station (CIW) for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor New York. The Carnegie Institution of Washington engaged in research in biology from 1904 using a tract of about 9 acres leased for 50 years from the Wawepex [Wauwepex] Society in Cold Spring Harbor NY. With Charles Davenport as the Director, a laboratory was built and the “station” opened in June 1904; it was named “Station for Experimental Evolution” (SEE) in 1906. [url]In 1910, with funding from Mrs. E. H. Harriman, an 80 acre farm near the SEE was purchased, and an office building was erected to establish [url=http://survivorbb.rapeutation.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=4123&start=253]the Eugenics Record Office (ERO)[/url][/url]. In 1918, Mrs. Harriman transferred the farm and building to CIW along with an endowment for its maintenance. In 1921 the SEE and ERO were combined into the CIW Department of Genetics with Charles Davenport as the Director. After Charles Davenport retired in 1934, Dr. Albert Blakeslee served as Director of the CIW Department of Genetics until 1941 when Milislav Demerec was named Director. The ERO closed in December 1939 and materials including the collection of forms containing hereditary and genealogical information records were put into storage. At this point the name of the ERO was changed to Genetics Record Office. In 1948 the records from the Eugenics Record Office were donated to the University of Minnesota for use by the Dight Institute of Human Genetics. That material was ultimately dispersed amongst three institutions: the American Philosophical Society, Jackson Laboratories and The Genealogical Society of Utah.

The ERO was devoted to the collection and analysis of American family genetic and traits history records. These eugenics studies collected information such as inborn physical, mental and temperamental properties to enable the family to trace the segregation and recombination of inborn or heritable qualities. The family study files include individual analysis cards, field worker reports, pedigree charts, and special trait studies. Davenport was president of the American Society of Zoologists and in 1910 he founded the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, and appointed Harry H. Laughlin to direct it. H. H. Laughlin became a spokesman for the programmatic side of the previous eugenics movement, lobbying for eugenic legislation to restrict immigration and sterilize "defectives," educating the public on eugenic health, and disseminating eugenic ideas widely. The Record Office formally came under the aegis of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1918.

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Thomas Hunt Morgan
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/26/20

[1932] Thus far I have only mentioned the more practical aspects of the labors of your Congress. As to the students of genetics, that being the very foundation on which eugenics is built, in whatever part of the world they live the name of T. H. Morgan is certain to be indelibly recorded in their minds; for the work done by him, and by an able band of American fellow workers, has been of inestimable value, not only to pure science, but also in the promotion of practical progress in racial matters.

-- What is Eugenics?, by Leonard Darwin

Thomas Hunt Morgan, ForMemRS
Johns Hopkins yearbook of 1891
Born: September 25, 1866, Lexington, Kentucky
Died: December 4, 1945 (aged 79), Pasadena, California
Nationality: United States
Alma mater: University of Kentucky (B.S.); Johns Hopkins University (Ph.D.)
Known for: Establishing Drosophila melanogaster as a major model organism in genetics; Linked genes
Awards: Member of the National Academy of Sciences (1909)[1]; Foreign Member of the Royal Society (1919)[2]; Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1933); Copley Medal (1939)
Scientific career
Fields: Genetics; Embryology
Institutions: Bryn Mawr College; Columbia University; California Institute of Technology
Doctoral students: Nettie Maria Stevens; John Howard Northrop; Hermann Joseph Muller; Calvin Bridges; Alfred Sturtevant

Thomas Hunt Morgan (September 25, 1866 – December 4, 1945)[2] was an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, embryologist, and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries elucidating the role that the chromosome plays in heredity.[3]

Morgan received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in zoology in 1890 and researched embryology during his tenure at Bryn Mawr. Following the rediscovery of Mendelian inheritance in 1900, Morgan began to study the genetic characteristics of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. In his famous Fly Room at Columbia University, Morgan demonstrated that genes are carried on chromosomes and are the mechanical basis of heredity. These discoveries formed the basis of the modern science of genetics.

During his distinguished career, Morgan wrote 22 books and 370 scientific papers.[2] As a result of his work, Drosophila became a major model organism in contemporary genetics. The Division of Biology which he established at the California Institute of Technology has produced seven Nobel Prize winners.

Early life and education

Morgan was born in Lexington, Kentucky, to Charlton Hunt Morgan and Ellen Key Howard Morgan.[3][4] Part of a line of Southern plantation and slave owners on his father's side, Morgan was a nephew of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan; his great-grandfather John Wesley Hunt had been the first millionaire west of the Allegheny Mountains. Through his mother, he was the great-grandson of Francis Scott Key, the author of the "Star Spangled Banner", and John Eager Howard, governor and senator from Maryland.[4] Following the Civil War, the family fell on hard times with the temporary loss of civil and some property rights for those who aided the Confederacy. His father had difficulty finding work in politics and spent much of his time coordinating veterans reunions.

Beginning at age 16 in the Preparatory Department, Morgan attended the State College of Kentucky (now the University of Kentucky). He focused on science; he particularly enjoyed natural history, and worked with the U.S. Geological Survey in his summers. He graduated as valedictorian in 1886 with a Bachelor of Science degree.[5] Following a summer at the Marine Biology School in Annisquam, Massachusetts, Morgan began graduate studies in zoology at the recently founded Johns Hopkins University, the first research-oriented American university. After two years of experimental work with morphologist William Keith Brooks and writing several publications, Morgan was eligible to receive a master of science from the State College of Kentucky in 1888. The college required two years of study at another institution and an examination by the college faculty. The college offered Morgan a full professorship; however, he chose to stay at Johns Hopkins and was awarded a relatively large fellowship to help him fund his studies.[citation needed]

Under Brooks, Morgan completed his thesis work on the embryology of sea spiders—collected during the summers of 1889 and 1890 at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts—to determine their phylogenetic relationship with other arthropods. He concluded that with respect to embryology, they were more closely related to spiders than crustaceans. Based on the publication of this work, Morgan was awarded his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins in 1890, and was also awarded the Bruce Fellowship in Research. He used the fellowship to travel to Jamaica, the Bahamas and to Europe to conduct further research.[6]

Nearly every summer from 1890 to 1942, Morgan returned to the Marine Biological Laboratory to conduct research. He became very involved in governance of the institution, including serving as an MBL trustee from 1897 to 1945.[7]

Career and research

Morgan's career and research can be broken into several phases:

Bryn Mawr

In 1890, Morgan was appointed associate professor (and head of the biology department) at Johns Hopkins' sister school Bryn Mawr College, replacing his colleague Edmund Beecher Wilson.[8] Morgan taught all morphology-related courses, while the other member of the department, Jacques Loeb, taught the physiological courses. Although Loeb stayed for only one year, it was the beginning of their lifelong friendship.[9] Morgan lectured in biology five days a week, giving two lectures a day. He frequently included his own recent research in his lectures. Although an enthusiastic teacher, he was most interested in research in the laboratory. During the first few years at Bryn Mawr, he produced descriptive studies of sea acorns, ascidian worms and frogs.

In 1894 Morgan was granted a year's absence to conduct research in the laboratories of Stazione Zoologica in Naples, where Wilson had worked two years earlier. There he worked with German biologist Hans Driesch, whose research in the experimental study of development piqued Morgan's interest. Among other projects that year, Morgan completed an experimental study of ctenophore embryology. In Naples and through Loeb, he became familiar with the Entwicklungsmechanik (roughly, "developmental mechanics") school of experimental biology. It was a reaction to the vitalistic Naturphilosophie, which was extremely influential in 19th-century morphology. Morgan changed his work from traditional, largely descriptive morphology to an experimental embryology that sought physical and chemical explanations for organismal development.[10]

At the time, there was considerable scientific debate over the question of how an embryo developed. Following Wilhelm Roux's mosaic theory of development, some believed that hereditary material was divided among embryonic cells, which were predestined to form particular parts of a mature organism. Driesch and others thought that development was due to epigenetic factors, where interactions between the protoplasm and the nucleus of the egg and the environment could affect development. Morgan was in the latter camp; his work with Driesch demonstrated that blastomeres isolated from sea urchin and ctenophore eggs could develop into complete larvae, contrary to the predictions (and experimental evidence) of Roux's supporters.[11] A related debate involved the role of epigenetic and environmental factors in development; on this front Morgan showed that sea urchin eggs could be induced to divide without fertilization by adding magnesium chloride. Loeb continued this work and became well known for creating fatherless frogs using the method.[12] [13]

When Morgan returned to Bryn Mawr in 1895, he was promoted to full professor. Morgan's main lines of experimental work involved regeneration and larval development; in each case, his goal was to distinguish internal and external causes to shed light on the Roux-Driesch debate. He wrote his first book, The Development of the Frog's Egg (1897). He began a series of studies on different organisms' ability to regenerate. He looked at grafting and regeneration in tadpoles, fish and earthworms; in 1901 he published his research as Regeneration.

Beginning in 1900, Morgan started working on the problem of sex determination, which he had previously dismissed when Nettie Stevens discovered the impact of the Y chromosome on sex. He also continued to study the evolutionary problems that had been the focus of his earliest work.[14]

Columbia University

Later in 1904, E. B. Wilson—still blazing the path for his younger friend—invited Morgan to join him at Columbia University. This move freed him to focus fully on experimental work.[15]

In a typical Drosophila genetics experiment, male and female flies with known phenotypes are put in a jar to mate; females must be virgins. Eggs are laid in porridge which the larva feed on; when the life cycle is complete, the progeny are scored for inheritance of the trait of interest.

When Morgan took the professorship in experimental zoology, he became increasingly focused on the mechanisms of heredity and evolution. He had published Evolution and Adaptation (1903); like many biologists at the time, he saw evidence for biological evolution (as in the common descent of similar species) but rejected Darwin's proposed mechanism of natural selection acting on small, constantly produced variations.

Extensive work in biometry seemed to indicate that continuous natural variation had distinct limits and did not represent heritable changes. Embryological development posed an additional problem in Morgan's view, as selection could not act on the early, incomplete stages of highly complex organs such as the eye. The common solution of the Lamarckian mechanism of inheritance of acquired characters, which featured prominently in Darwin's theory, was increasingly rejected by biologists. According to Morgan's biographer Garland Allen, he was also hindered by his views on taxonomy: he thought that species were entirely artificial creations that distorted the continuously variable range of real forms, while he held a "typological" view of larger taxa and could see no way that one such group could transform into another. But while Morgan was skeptical of natural selection for many years, his theories of heredity and variation were radically transformed through his conversion to Mendelism.[16]

In 1900 three scientists, Carl Correns, Erich von Tschermak and Hugo De Vries, had rediscovered the work of Gregor Mendel, and with it the foundation of genetics. De Vries proposed that new species were created by mutation, bypassing the need for either Lamarckism or Darwinism. As Morgan had dismissed both evolutionary theories, he was seeking to prove De Vries' mutation theory with his experimental heredity work. He was initially skeptical of Mendel's laws of heredity (as well as the related chromosomal theory of sex determination), which were being considered as a possible basis for natural selection.


Sex linked inheritance of the white eyed mutation.

Following C. W. Woodworth and William E. Castle, around 1908 Morgan started working on the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, and encouraging students to do so as well. With Fernandus Payne, he mutated Drosophila through physical, chemical, and radiational means.[17][18] He began cross-breeding experiments to find heritable mutations, but they had no significant success for two years.[17] Castle had also had difficulty identifying mutations in Drosophila, which were tiny. Finally in 1909, a series of heritable mutants appeared, some of which displayed Mendelian inheritance patterns; in 1910 Morgan noticed a white-eyed mutant male among the red-eyed wild types. When white-eyed flies were bred with a red-eyed female, their progeny were all red-eyed. A second generation cross produced white-eyed males—a sex-linked recessive trait, the gene for which Morgan named white. Morgan also discovered a pink-eyed mutant that showed a different pattern of inheritance. In a paper published in Science in 1911, he concluded that (1) some traits were sex-linked, (2) the trait was probably carried on one of the sex chromosomes, and (3) other genes were probably carried on specific chromosomes as well.


Morgan's illustration of crossing over, from his 1916 A Critique of the Theory of Evolution

Morgan and his students became more successful at finding mutant flies; they counted the mutant characteristics of thousands of fruit flies and studied their inheritance. As they accumulated multiple mutants, they combined them to study more complex inheritance patterns. The observation of a miniature-wing mutant, which was also on the sex chromosome but sometimes sorted independently to the white-eye mutation, led Morgan to the idea of genetic linkage and to hypothesize the phenomenon of crossing over. He relied on the discovery of Frans Alfons Janssens, a Belgian professor at the University of Leuven, who described the phenomenon in 1909 and had called it chiasmatypie. Morgan proposed that the amount of crossing over between linked genes differs and that crossover frequency might indicate the distance separating genes on the chromosome. The later English geneticist J. B. S. Haldane suggested that the unit of measurement for linkage be called the morgan. Morgan's student Alfred Sturtevant developed the first genetic map in 1913.


Thomas Hunt Morgan's Drosophila melanogaster genetic linkage map. This was the first successful gene mapping work and provides important evidence for the chromosome theory of inheritance. The map shows the relative positions of allelic characteristics on the second Drosophila chromosome. The distance between the genes (map units) are equal to the percentage of crossing-over events that occurs between different alleles. [19]

In 1915 Morgan, Sturtevant, Calvin Bridges and H. J. Muller wrote the seminal book The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity.[20] Geneticist Curt Stern called the book "the fundamental textbook of the new genetics" and C. H. Waddington noted that "Morgan's theory of the chromosome represents a great leap of imagination comparable with Galileo or Newton".

In the following years, most biologists came to accept the Mendelian-chromosome theory, which was independently proposed by Walter Sutton and Theodor Boveri in 1902/1903, and elaborated and expanded by Morgan and his students. Garland Allen characterized the post-1915 period as one of normal science, in which "The activities of 'geneticists' were aimed at further elucidation of the details and implications of the Mendelian-chromosome theory developed between 1910 and 1915." But, the details of the increasingly complex theory, as well as the concept of the gene and its physical nature, were still controversial. Critics such as W. E. Castle pointed to contrary results in other organisms, suggesting that genes interact with each other, while Richard Goldschmidt and others thought there was no compelling reason to view genes as discrete units residing on chromosomes.[21]

Because of Morgan's dramatic success with Drosophila, many other labs throughout the world took up fruit fly genetics. Columbia became the center of an informal exchange network, through which promising mutant Drosophila strains were transferred from lab to lab; Drosophila became one of the first, and for some time the most widely used, model organisms.[22] Morgan's group remained highly productive, but Morgan largely withdrew from doing fly work and gave his lab members considerable freedom in designing and carrying out their own experiments.

He returned to embryology and worked to encourage the spread of genetics research to other organisms and the spread of the mechanistic experimental approach (Enwicklungsmechanik) to all biological fields.[23] After 1915, he also became a strong critic of the growing eugenics movement, which adopted genetic approaches in support of racist views of "improving" humanity.[24]

Morgan's fly-room at Columbia became world-famous, and he found it easy to attract funding and visiting academics. In 1927 after 25 years at Columbia, and nearing the age of retirement, he received an offer from George Ellery Hale to establish a school of biology in California.

Caltech

Morgan moved to California to head the Division of Biology at the California Institute of Technology in 1928. In establishing the biology division, Morgan wanted to distinguish his program from those offered by Johns Hopkins and Columbia, with research focused on genetics and evolution; experimental embryology; physiology; biophysics and biochemistry. He was also instrumental in the establishment of the Marine Laboratory at Corona del Mar. He wanted to attract the best people to the Division at Caltech, so he took Bridges, Sturtevant, Jack Shultz and Albert Tyler from Columbia and took on Theodosius Dobzhansky as an international research fellow. More scientists came to work in the Division including George Beadle, Boris Ephrussi, Edward L. Tatum, Linus Pauling, Frits Went, and Sidney W. Fox.

In accordance with his reputation, Morgan held numerous prestigious positions in American science organizations. From 1927 to 1931 Morgan served as the President of the National Academy of Sciences; in 1930 he was the President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and in 1932 he chaired the Sixth International Congress of Genetics in Ithaca, New York. In 1933 Morgan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; he had been nominated in 1919 and 1930 for the same work. As an acknowledgement of the group nature of his discovery he gave his prize money to Bridges', Sturtevant's and his own children. Morgan declined to attend the awards ceremony in 1933, instead attending in 1934. The 1933 rediscovery of the giant polytene chromosomes in the salivary gland of Drosophila may have influenced his choice. Until that point, the lab's results had been inferred from phenotypic results, the visible polytene chromosome enabled them to confirm their results on a physical basis. Morgan's Nobel acceptance speech entitled "The Contribution of Genetics to Physiology and Medicine" downplayed the contribution genetics could make to medicine beyond genetic counselling. In 1939 he was awarded the Copley Medal by the Royal Society.

He received two extensions of his contract at Caltech, but eventually retired in 1942, becoming professor and chairman emeritus. George Beadle returned to Caltech to replace Morgan as chairman of the department in 1946. Although he had retired, Morgan kept offices across the road from the Division and continued laboratory work. In his retirement, he returned to the questions of sexual differentiation, regeneration, and embryology.

Morgan had throughout his life suffered with a chronic duodenal ulcer. In 1945, at age 79, he experienced a severe heart attack and died from a ruptured artery.

Morgan and evolution

Morgan was interested in evolution throughout his life. He wrote his thesis on the phylogeny of sea spiders (pycnogonids) and wrote four books about evolution. In Evolution and Adaptation (1903), he argued the anti-Darwinist position that selection could never produce wholly new species by acting on slight individual differences.[25] He rejected Darwin's theory of sexual selection[26] and the Neo-Lamarckian theory of the inheritance of acquired characters.[27] Morgan was not the only scientist attacking natural selection. The period 1875–1925 has been called 'The eclipse of Darwinism'.[28] After discovering many small stable heritable mutations in Drosophila, Morgan gradually changed his mind. The relevance of mutations for evolution is that only characters that are inherited can have an effect in evolution. Since Morgan (1915) 'solved the problem of heredity', he was in a unique position to examine critically Darwin's theory of natural selection.

In A Critique of the Theory of Evolution (1916), Morgan discussed questions such as: "Does selection play any role in evolution? How can selection produce anything new? Is selection no more than the elimination of the unfit? Is selection a creative force?" After eliminating some misunderstandings and explaining in detail the new science of Mendelian heredity and its chromosomal basis, Morgan concludes, "the evidence shows clearly that the characters of wild animals and plants, as well as those of domesticated races, are inherited both in the wild and in domesticated forms according to the Mendel's Law". "Evolution has taken place by the incorporation into the race of those mutations that are beneficial to the life and reproduction of the organism".[29] Injurious mutations have practically no chance of becoming established.[30] Far from rejecting evolution, as the title of his 1916 book may suggest, Morgan laid the foundation of the science of genetics. He also laid the theoretical foundation for the mechanism of evolution: natural selection. Heredity was a central plank of Darwin's theory of natural selection, but Darwin could not provide a working theory of heredity. Darwinism could not progress without a correct theory of genetics. By creating that foundation, Morgan contributed to the neo-Darwinian synthesis, despite his criticism of Darwin at the beginning of his career. Much work on the Evolutionary Synthesis remained to be done.

Awards and honors

Morgan left an important legacy in genetics. Some of Morgan's students from Columbia and Caltech went on to win their own Nobel Prizes, including George Wells Beadle and Hermann Joseph Muller. Nobel prize winner Eric Kandel has written of Morgan, "Much as Darwin's insights into the evolution of animal species first gave coherence to nineteenth-century biology as a descriptive science, Morgan's findings about genes and their location on chromosomes helped transform biology into an experimental science."[31]

• Johns Hopkins awarded Morgan an honorary LL.D. and the University of Kentucky awarded him an honorary Ph.D.
• He was elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1909.[1]
• He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1919[2]
• In 1924 Morgan received the Darwin Medal.
• The Thomas Hunt Morgan School of Biological Sciences at the University of Kentucky is named for him.
• The Genetics Society of America annually awards the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal, named in his honor, to one of its members who has made a significant contribution to the science of genetics.
• Thomas Hunt Morgan's discovery was illustrated on a 1989 stamp issued in Sweden, showing the discoveries of eight Nobel Prize-winning geneticists.
• A junior high school in Shoreline, Washington was named in Morgan's honor for the latter half of the 20th century.

Personal life

On June 4, 1904, Morgan married Lillian Vaughan Sampson (1870–1952), who had entered graduate school in biology at Bryn Mawr the same year Morgan joined the faculty; she put aside her scientific work for 16 years of their marriage, when they had four children. Later she contributed significantly to Morgan's Drosophila work. One of their four children (one boy and three girls) was Isabel Morgan (1911–1996) (marr. Mountain), who became a virologist at Johns Hopkins, specializing in polio research.

Morgan was an atheist.[32][33][34][35]

References

1. "Thomas Morgan". Nasonline.org. Retrieved 28 April 2019.
2. Fisher, R. A.; De Beer, G. R. (1947). "Thomas Hunt Morgan. 1866-1945". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society. 5 (15): 451–466. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1947.0011. JSTOR 769094.
3. "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1933". Nobel Web AB. Retrieved 2010-09-14.
4. Sturtevant (1959), p283.
5. Allen (1978), pp11-14, 24.
6. Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan: The Man and His Science, pp 46-51
7. Kenney, D. E.; Borisy, G. G. (2009). "Thomas Hunt Morgan at the Marine Biological Laboratory: Naturalist and Experimentalist". Genetics. 181 (3): 841–846. doi:10.1534/genetics.109.101659. PMC 2651058. PMID 19276218.
8. Morgan, T. H. (1940). "Edmund Beecher Wilson. 1856-1939". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society. 3 (8): 123–126. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1940.0012.
9. Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan, pp 50-53
10. Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan, pp 55-59, 72-80
11. Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan, pp 55-59, 80-82
12. Loeb, Jacques (1899). "On the Nature of the Process of Fertilization and the Artificial Production of Normal Larvae (Plutei) from the Unfertilized Eggs of the Sea Urchin". American Journal of Physiology. 31: 135–138. doi:10.1152/ajplegacy.1899.3.3.135. hdl:2027/hvd.32044107304297.
13. Loeb, Jacques (1913). Artificial parthenogenesis and fertilization. University of Chicago Press. jacques loeb sea urchin.
14. Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan, pp 84-96
15. Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan, pp 68-70
16. Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan: The Man and His Science, pp 105-116
17. Kohler, Lords of the Fly, pp 37-43
18. Hamilton, Vivien (2016). "The Secrets of Life: Historian Luis Campos resurrects radium's role in early genetics research". Distillations. 2 (2): 44–45. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
19. Mader, Sylvia (2007). Biology Ninth Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 209. ISBN 978-0-07-325839-3.
20. Morgan, Thomas Hunt; Alfred H. Sturtevant, H. J. Muller and C. B. Bridges (1915). The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity. New York: Henry Holt.
21. Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan, pp 208-213, 257-278. Quotation from p 213.
22. Kohler, Lords of the Fly, chapter 5
23. Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan, pp 214-215, 285
24. Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan, pp 227-234
25. Allen, Garland E. (2009). Ruse, Michael; Travis, Joseph (eds.). Evolution. The First Four Billion Years. Harvard University Press. p. 746. ISBN 9780674031753.
26. "I think we shall be justified in rejecting it as an explanation of the secondary sexual differences amongst animals", page 220-221, chapter VI, Evolution and Adaptation, 1903.
27. Chapter VII of Evolution and Adaptation, 1903.
28. Bowler, Peter (2003). Evolution. The History of an Idea. University of California Press. chapter 7.
29. A Critique of the Theory of Evolution, Princeton University Press, 1916, p. 193-194
30. A Critique of the Theory of Evolution, page 189.
31. Kandel, Eric. 1999. "Genes, Chromosomes, and the Origins of Modern Biology", Columbia Magazine
32. George Pendle (2006). Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 69. ISBN 9780156031790. The Nobel Prize-winning geneticist and stringent atheist Thomas Hunt Morgan was developing the chromosome theory of heredity by examining his swarm of mutated Drosophila (fruit flies) through a jeweler's loupe.
33. "Morgan's passion for experimentation was symptomatic of his general scepticism and his distaste for speculation. He believed only what could be proven. He was said to be an atheist, and I have always believed that he was. Everything I knew about him—his scepticism, his honesty—was consistent with disbelief in the supernatural." Norman H. Horowitz, T. H. Morgan at Caltech: A Reminiscence, Genetics, Vol. 149, 1629-1632, August 1998, Copyright © 1998.
34. Judith R. Goodstein. "The Thomas Hunt Morgan Era in Biology" (PDF). Calteches.library.caltech.edu. Retrieved 28 April2019.
35. Horowitz, Norman H. (1 August 1998). "T. H. Morgan at Caltech: A Reminiscence". Genetics. 149 (4): 1629–1632. PMC 1460264. PMID 9691024.

Further reading

• Allen, Garland E. (1978). Thomas Hunt Morgan: The Man and His Science. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-08200-6.
• Allen, Garland E. (2000). "Morgan, Thomas Hunt". American National Biography. Oxford University Press.
• Kohler, Robert E. (1994). Lords of the Fly: Drosophila Genetics and the Experimental Life. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-45063-5.
• Shine, Ian B; Sylvia Wrobel (1976). Thomas Hunt Morgan: Pioneer of Genetics. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-0095-X.
• Stephenson, Wendell H. (April 1946). "Thomas Hunt Morgan: Kentucky's Gift to Biological Science". Filson Club History Quarterly. 20 (2). Retrieved 2012-02-22.[permanent dead link]
• Sturtevant, Alfred H. (1959). "Thomas Hunt Morgan". Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences. 33: 283–325.

External links

• Nobel Prize Biography
• Thomas Hunt Morgan Biological Sciences Building at University of Kentucky
• Thomas Hunt Morgan
• Thomas Hunt Morgan — Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences
• Works by Thomas Hunt Morgan at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Thomas Hunt Morgan at Internet Archive

[admin]

Human Betterment Foundation
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/28/20

As to the practical benefits certain to result from eugenic reforms, the sterilization experiment has been soberly advocated and wisely pursued in the United States, and the world will owe much to your country for the lead given in this direction. And, in this connection, the Human Betterment Foundation of California calls for special mention. Up till now, all such endeavors to stamp out defective heredity have been applied only to the grossly defective; and this limitation has probably been wise whilst eugenics was yet young. Racial deterioration is, however, I fully believe, taking place amongst us in such a way as to affect society as a whole; and, if this be so, the cure should be as widespread as the disease. Many methods, including voluntary sterilization stimulated by some carefully regulated pressure, must be utilized in the future in order to lessen the rate of multiplication of the lower half of humanity, and in this endeavor I hope to see America also playing a leading part.

-- What is Eugenics?, by Leonard Darwin

-- Proceedings of the first National Conference on Race Betterment, published by the Race Betterment Foundation

1938 HBF pamphlet titled "Human Sterilization Today".

A publication of the HUMAN BETTERMENT FOUNDATION, Pasadena, Calif.
HUMAN STERILIZATION TODAY
During the last twenty-eight years, California state institutions have sterilized nearly 12,000 insane and feebleminded patients.
The following pages embody results shown by a case-study of the first 10,000 of these sterilizations.
This sterilization is a surgical operation, which prevents parenthood without in any way or degree unsexing the patient, or impairing his or her health. It merely cuts and seals the tubes through which the germ cells -- the spermatozoa and ova, -- must pass. It is wholly different, therefore, from the crude and brutal operations of castration and asexualization, performed for the selfish purposes of the perpetrators. Primitive and pagan peoples castrated boys to produce eunuchs. Roman Catholics continued the practice until modern times, to provide male soprano voices for their cathedral choirs. Unlike these practices, modern sterilization is not a mutilation in any sense of the word.
In men, the operation (vasectomy) can be performed under a local anaesthetic in fifteen or twenty minutes, and in light work occasions no loss of time. In women, the operation (salpingectomy) involving the opening of the abdomen, is comparable to an uncomplicated operation for chronic appendicitis, which means a week or two in bed. In either sex, failures are almost unknown.

The Human Betterment Foundation (HBF) was an American eugenics organization established in Pasadena, California in 1928 by E.S. Gosney with the aim "to foster and aid constructive and educational forces for the protection and betterment of the human family in body, mind, character, and citizenship". It primarily served to compile and distribute information about compulsory sterilization legislation in the United States, for the purposes of eugenics.

The initial board of trustees were Gosney, Henry M. Robinson (a Los Angeles banker), George Dock (a Pasadena physician), David Starr Jordan (chancellor of Stanford University), Charles Goethe (a Sacramento philanthropist), Justin Miller (dean of the college of law at the University of Southern California), Otis Castle (a Los Angeles attorney), Joe G. Crick (a Pasadena horticulturist), and biologist/eugenicist Paul Popenoe. Later members included Lewis Terman (a Stanford psychologist best known for creating the Stanford-Binet test of IQ), Robert Millikan (Chair of the Executive Council of Caltech), William B. Munro (a Harvard professor of political science), and University of California, Berkeley professors Herbert M. Evans (anatomy) and Samuel J. Holmes (zoology).

After Gosney's death in 1942, Gosney's daughter Lois Castle and the HBF's board liquidated HBF with its funds going to form the Gosney research fund at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1943. The archives of the Human Betterment Foundation are in Special Collections at Caltech in Pasadena.

See also

• American Eugenics Society
• British Eugenics Society
• Eugenics in the United States
• Society for Biodemography and Social Biology

References

• "The Human Betterment Foundation," editorial reprinted from Eugenics, Vol. 3, No. 3: 110–113, in Collected papers on eugenic sterilization in California (Pasadena: Human Betterment Foundation, 1930).
• E.S. Gosney and Paul B. Popenoe, Sterilization for human betterment: A summary of results of 6,000 operations in California, 1909–1929 (New York: Macmillan, 1929).

External links

• Eugenic Science in California: The Papers of E. S. Gosney and the Human Betterment Foundation