'Like a baby with a box of matches': British scientists and the concept of 'race' in the inter-war period

British Journal for the History of Science

Volumn 38, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 307-324

  Schaffer, Gavin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; HISTORY; HUMAN; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; RACE; SCIENCE; SOCIAL CLASS; SOCIAL PROBLEM; SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY; UNITED KINGDOM;

CONTINENTAL POPULATION GROUPS; GREAT BRITAIN; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; PREJUDICE; RACE RELATIONS; SCIENCE; SOCIAL CLASS;

EID: 33644618248     PISSN: 00070874     EISSN: 1474001X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007087405006990     Document Type: Article

References (138)

1. 'The UNESCO Statement by Experts on Race Problems ', 18 July 1950, cited in full in A. Montagu, Race, Science and Humanity, London, 1963, 176.
2. It is important to emphasize that inter-war scientific interest in 'race ' was not just linked to the eugenics movement. In Britain some leftist analysts of 'race', like Lancelot Hogben, maintained a consistent hostility towards the movement, as did some right-wing 'race' thinkers. See G. K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils, Brussels, 1922.
3. See P. Mazumdar, Eugenics, Human Genetics and Human Failings: The Eugenics Society, Its Sources and Its Critics in Britain, London and New York, 1992;
4. G. Searle, Eugenics and Politics in Britain 1900-14, London, 1976;
5. and G. Jones, 'Eugenics and social policy between the wars', Historical Journal (1982), 25, 717-28.
6. Also see G. Richards, 'Race', Racism and Psychology: Towards a Reflexive History, London and New York, 1997, 189-216.
7. Mazumdar, 'Race', Racism and Psychology: Towards a Reflexive History op. cit. (3), 3.
8. D. Stone, 'Race in British eugenics', European History Quarterly (2000), 31, 397-425, 398.
9. Also see D. Stone, Breeding Superman: Nietzsche, Race and Eugenics in Edwardian and Interwar Britain, Liverpool, 2002.
10. Mazumdar, Breeding Superman: Nietzsche, Race and Eugenics in Edwardian and Interwar Britain op. cit. (3), 194.
11. E. Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism: Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the United States between the World Wars, Cambridge, 1992, 1.
12. In the first Statement, Prof. Morris Ginsberg represented the UK. In the second statement the UK was represented by Dr J. C. Trevor and Prof. S. Zuckerman.
13. For Huxley's thoughts on the role of this new organization see J. Huxley, UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its Philosophy, Washington, DC, 1948.
14. See J. Huxley, Africa View, London, 1931, 393: 'You cannot expect a people to make a really good job of becoming civilised if while you proffer western ideas with one hand you take away the fruits of them with the other. '
15. There has been scholarly debate over the authorship of this book. Some scholars have alleged that Charles Singer and Charles Seligman were actually the writers of much of the text, but that Huxley and Haddon published We Europeans in order to reach the widest possible audience and avoid allegations of a Jewish agenda (see Barkan, Africa View op. cit. (7), 302-10). This article, whilst acknowledging other contributors, will generally present the work as that of Huxley and Haddon. They took responsibility for its contents and wrote large sections of the text themselves, despite seemingly taking contributions from other scholars.
16. See N. Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science, London, 1982, 137-44;
17. P. Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics, Cambridge, 1986, 109-19,
18. and Barkan, Race and Empire in British Politics op. cit. (7), 228-77.
19. Stepan, Race and Empire in British Politics op. cit. (12), 143
20. and Barkan, Race and Empire in British Politics op. cit. (7), 279.
21. Barkan, Race and Empire in British Politics op. cit. (7).
22. See the following sections: 'A racist liberal. Julian Huxley's early years', 177-89;
23. '"Africa view" - Huxley's changing perspectives', 235-49;
24. and 'We Europeans', 296-302.
25. Huxley first moderated his 'racial' views after a trip to Africa, which he recorded in the 1931 study Africa View. The extreme racism of white settlers clearly upset the author, who developed a critical attitude towards exploitative imperialism and a more positive view about the potential of black peoples. Huxley's reaction to racism can be seen in his argument that ' the Africans, though the ignorant persist in classing them all merely " blacks", " natives", or even " niggers", show more variety of physical type and way of life than is to be found in all Europe'. Huxley, We Europeans op. cit. (10), 6.
26. The Eugenics Education Society first met under the leadership of Francis Galton in 1908.
27. Hasian has noted in this context that the term 'eugenics' was utilized in eight entirely different ways. M. A. Hasian Jr, The Rhetoric of Eugenics, Athens, GA, 1996, 28-9.
28. C. Saleeby, The Eugenic Prospect: National and Racial, London, 1921 (attitude to alcohol, 39; National Health Centres, 237). Saleeby used 'race' as a term to describe collectively all people living in Britain. He was seemingly unconcerned about the origins of the population and instead focused his work on improving welfare and living standards in order to improve the British 'race'. These views resonate with those of an inter-war school of left-wing eugenicists.
29. See G. Werskey, The Visible College, London, 1978, 96-7.
30. A.'White, Efficiency and Empire, London, 1901, 111-17.
31. See Stepan, A.'White, Efficiency and Empire, London op. cit. (12), 140.
32. See Werskey, A.'White, Efficiency and Empire, London op. cit. (18), 159-60.
33. J. B. S. Haldane, Science and Everyday Life, Harmondsworth, 1939, 178.
34. L. Hogben, Dangerous Thoughts, London, 1939, 51.
35. As well as taking up ideological opposition to Hitler, many British scientists helped to secure work for refugee academics through the Academic Assistance Council. See R. Clark, The Life and Work of J. B. S. Haldane, Oxford and New York, 1984, 93, 96.
36. See Werskey, The Life and Work of J. B. S. Haldane op. cit. (18), 234.
37. Also see W. McGucken, Scientists, Society and State: The Social Relations of Science Movement in Great Britain 1931-1947, Columbus, 1984, 364-5.
38. Werskey, Scientists, Society and State: The Social Relations of Science Movement in Great Britain 1931-1947 op. cit. (18), 241.
39. J. Huxley and A. C. Haddon, We Europeans: A Survey of Racial Problems, London, 1935, 273.
40. Huxley and Haddon, op. cit. (27), 156.
41. Huxley and Haddon, We Europeans: A Survey of Racial Problems op. cit. (27), 287.
42. J. Huxley, Memories I, London, 1970, 207.
43. As Britain descended into war, scientists were often keen to voice their opposition to Nazi 'racial' thinking. Haldane offered a clear explanation for this scientific action: 'At the present time we are fighting Hitlerism with bombs and depth charges. We should be doing so in the realm of ideas also '. J. B. S. Haldane, Science Advances, London, 1947, 235-6.
44. See also Clark, op. cit. (24), 97.
45. See Race and Culture, Royal Anthropological Institute and the Institute of Sociology, London, 1935, 2.
46. Barkan has written in detail on this conference in Barkan, Race and Culture op. cit. (7), 285-96.
47. Race and Culture, op. cit. (32), 5-6. These views were consistent with Smith's published analysis on the subject.
48. See G. Elliot Smith, Human History, London, 1930;
49. and G. Elliot Smith idem, The Diffusion of Culture, London, 1933.
50. Race and Culture, op. cit. (32), 19. Firth's remarks should be seen as an indirect challenge to Arthur Keith's work on prejudice, discussed below.
51. Race and Culture, op. cit. (32), 8. Haldane argued that 'some characters are little influenced by environment, but are innate'.
52. Race and Culture, op. cit. (32), 10.
53. Barkan has argued that 'the co-operation between Pitt-Rivers and Gates in presenting a racist front is clear'. Barkan, Race and Culture op. cit. (7), 289.
54. Barkan has noted that leading Jewish scientists were excluded from the conference, as it was argued that they could not consider issues of 'race' without bias. Barkan, op. cit. (7), 289.
55. Barkan, Race and Culture op. cit. (7), 295.
56. Race and Culture, op. cit. (32) (challenge to Elliot Smith, 18; on 'racial' types, 16-17).
57. This argument was intellectually rooted in polygenist 'racial' theory, the idea that human beings had emerged from more than one original source. The theory was most popular from the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, but retained key supporters into the twentieth century. Notably, Arthur Keith's eager analysis of the later discredited 'Piltdown Man' notoriously carried a form of this thinking into the inter-war period. See J. Sawday, '"New men, strange faces, other minds": Arthur Keith, Race and the Piltdown Affair (1912-52)', in Race, Science and Medicine, 1700-1960 (ed. W. Ernst and B. Harris), London, 1999, 259-88. Gates endorsed polygenist theory until his death in 1962. Indeed, these beliefs were recorded in his final academic contribution, published a year after his death.
58. See R. R. Gates, The Emergence of Racial Genetics, International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics, New York, 1963. 42
59. Race and Culture, op. cit. (32), 13.
60. Race and Culture, op. cit. (32), 15.
61. Race and Culture, op. cit. (32), 17.
62. R. R. Gates, Heredity and Eugenics, London, 1923, 232.
63. A. Keith, 'The evolution of the human races', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (1925), 58, 306-21, 319.
64. Keith, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland op. cit. (46).
65. A. Keith, The Place of Prejudice in Modern Civilisation: (Prejudice and Politics), London, 1931, 53. 49
66. Keith, The Place of Prejudice in Modern Civilisation: (Prejudice and Politics) op. cit. (48), 48.
67. Scientific reaction to the refugees was shaped by both attitudes towards Jews in general and feelings about increased competition from refugee scientists. See P. Weindling, 'Austrian medical refugees in Great Britain: from marginal aliens to established professionals', Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift (1998), 110, 158-61;
68. and T. Kushner, 'Beyond the pale? British reaction to Nazi anti-semitism 1933-9', in The Politics of Marginality: Race, the Radical Right and Minorities in Twentieth-Century Britain (ed. T. Kushner and K. Lunn), London, 1990, 149-50.
69. See A. Keith, Essays on Human Evolution, London, 1946, 11.
70. Gates MSS, Liddell Hart Archive, Kings College London, Box 1/12, Keith to Gates, 20 November 1950 (hereafter Gates MSS).
71. Gates MSS, Keith to Gates, 23 February 1950.
72. Gates MSS, Box 1/7.
73. Gates MSS, Box 11/41, c. 1945.
74. Gates MSS, 11/41, commenting on a study by Otto Klineberg, 1935.
75. Barkan, op. cit. (7), 209.
76. Similar views were expressed by F. A. E. Crew (1886-1973), Professor of Public Health and Social Medicine at Edinburgh University, in Organic Inheritance in Man, London, 1927, 137,
77. and by geologist J. W. Gregory (1864-1932) in The Menace of Colour, London, 1925, 239.
78. Keith, The Menace of Colour op. cit. (51), 320.
79. Karl Pearson was Professor of Mathematics at University College London until his retirement in 1933. He initiated this study of Jewish refugee children with his assistant Margaret Moul armed with the belief that eugenic trends could be observed through statistical analysis. Another good example of this kind of research into inter-'racial' contact is Muriel Fletcher's 1930 report on the 'colour problem in Liverpool and other ports', retained in the Liverpool Central Archive.
80. M. Moul and K. Pearson, 'The problem of alien immigration into Great Britain illustrated by an examination of Russian and Polish alien children', Annals of Eugenics (1925), 1, 6-127, 46.
81. Moul and Pearson, Annals of Eugenics op. cit. (60), 124.
82. Moul and Pearson, Annals of Eugenics op. cit. (60), 124.
83. Richards, Annals of Eugenics op. cit. (3), 191-3. Hughes and Davies argued that 'on an average, both in General Intelligence and in attainments in English and Arithmetic, Jewish children are definitely superior to the non-Jewish children attending the same school, the superiority being more marked with the boys than with the girls'.
84. See M. Davies and A. G. Hughes, An Investigation into the Comparative Intelligence and Attainments of Jewish and non-Jewish School Children, Cambridge, 1927, 145.
85. A. G. Hughes, 'Jews and Gentiles: their intellectual and temperamental differences', Eugenics Review (1928), 18, 1-6, 1.
86. Huxley and Haddon, Eugenics Review op. cit. (27), 281.
87. Huxley, Eugenics Review op. cit. (10), 388.
88. Race and Culture, op. cit. (32), 6.
89. J. B. S. Haldane, Heredity and Politics, London, 1938, 129.
90. J. B. S. Haldane, Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical Warfare, London, 1925, 45-6.
91. Haldane, Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical Warfare op. cit. (69), 47, on the military value of 'negroes in gas masks'. Later in this study Haldane criticized French colonial troops for fleeing when attacked (60). Perhaps this is why he considered that black troops needed to be led by white officers.
92. Haldane, Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical Warfare op. cit. (68).
93. Barkan has argued that it was not until after 1938 that the scientific majority came down firmly on the side of anti-racism. It is pertinent to note that the change did not occur before this time, though this article will argue that perhaps even the date chosen by Barkan is too early. See Barkan, Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical Warfare op. cit. (7), 280.
94. Controversies surrounding miscegenation in Britain and the United States were in this period nearly exclusively concerned with black and white mixing. Mixing between most (non-Jewish) European populations was accepted across the scientific spectrum. Even Gates conceded that amongst good European 'stock', mixing could produce 'hybrid vigour'. Gates, Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical Warfare op. cit. (45), 236.
95. Huxley and Haddon, Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical Warfare op. cit. (27), 280. It is worth noting that even the use of this language showed a degree of sympathy to traditional 'racial' arguments. It seems that 'wide crosses' was a euphemism for 'black-white' crosses. These reformist scholars still considered that the differences between the genetic makeup of people was necessarily 'wide' if they had differently coloured skin.
96. Huxley and Haddon, Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical Warfare op. cit. (27), 283.
97. Huxley and Haddon, Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical Warfare op. cit. (27), 282-3.
98. Huxley and Haddon, Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical Warfare op. cit. (27), 283.
99. Huxley and Haddon, Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical Warfare op. cit. (27), 283.
100. C. W. Armstrong, The Survival of the Unfittest, London, 1927, 9.
101. See Gates MSS, 11/48. In Gates's thinking, Britons could mix with other northern European peoples even with a benevolent effect. See Gates, The Survival of the Unfittest op. cit. (45), 223.
102. Gregory, The Survival of the Unfittest op. cit. (57), 323-7.
103. Gregory, The Survival of the Unfittest op. cit. (57), 323-7.
104. See Crew, The Survival of the Unfittest op. cit. (57), 105. The Eugenics Society continued periodically to voice these concerns into the 1930s through its publication Eugenics Review
105. (see K. B. Aikman, ' Race mixture' and A. Ludovici, 'Eugenics and consanguineous marriages', Eugenics Review (1935), 25-6, 151-66).
106. However, there are some grounds for Richards's analysis that coverage was 'marginal and inconsistent', reflecting a decline in respectability of views of this kind. See Richards, op. cit. (3), 191.
107. For example, perhaps the most intransigent of 'race' thinkers in this period (Gates) was a firm believer in genetics, ultimately moulding genetic theory around his own racist views by proposing a new discipline of 'racial' genetics. See Gates, Eugenics Review op. cit. (41).
108. For a thorough explanation of this debate see Stepan, op. cit. (12), 111-37;
109. Barkan, op. cit. (7), 137-43;
110. and Rich, Eugenics Review op. cit. (12), 109-16.
111. Stepan, Eugenics Review op. cit. (12), 119-21 and 137
112. and Rich, Eugenics Review op. cit. (12), 109.
113. See Pearson's challenge to the Anthropometrie Standards Committee cited in Rich, Eugenics Review op. cit. (12), 109.
114. Huxley and Haddon, Eugenics Review op. cit. (27), 266.
115. Also see Barkan, Eugenics Review op. cit. (7), 140.
116. Barkan, Eugenics Review op. cit. (7), 140.
117. Huxley and Haddon, Eugenics Review op. cit. (27), 92. It is possible to attribute this analysis to Huxley specifically as it corresponds almost identically to his argument in Africa View. Describing 'racial' differences, Huxley argued that 'the difference between the racial averages will be small; and that they will only be an affair of averages, and that the great majority of the two populations will overlap as regards their innate intellectual capacities'.
118. Huxley, Eugenics Review op. cit. (10), 389.
119. Haldane, Eugenics Review op. cit. (22), 180.
120. Barkan, Eugenics Review op. cit. (7), 140.
121. Salaman made important contributions to the scientific study of 'race'. See R. Salaman, 'Heredity and the Jew', Eugenics Review (1912), 3, 187-200.
122. Charles Singer MSS, Wellcome Archive, Wellcome Institute, London, (File El), Singer to Salaman, 2 November 1943 (hereafter Singer MSS). Singer's correspondence with the doctor and eugenicist Frederick Parkes Weber further illuminates Singer's views on the need for the deconstruction of 'racial' thinking on Jewry. Singer wrote to Parkes Weber, criticizing the doctor and citing the intellectual bankruptcy of 'racial' Jewish analysis in a tone suspiciously similar to that adopted in We Europeans: 'Passing over the term "race", which seems to me to be biologically untenable in the racial group known as Jews and passing over the point that you treat the "Jewish nose" as a Mendelian dominant for which there is no evidence and against which there is much evidence - you make the oddly contradictory point that as Jewish "blood" gets more and more lost in the general population so jealousy of Jews grows more and more.' Parkes Weber MSS, Wellcome Institute, London, PP/FPW/C10, 6 October 1943.
123. Singer MSS (File E1), Singer to Salaman, 2 November 1943.
124. Huxley and Haddon, op. cit. (27), 262.
125. This analysis perhaps betrays the influence of the other possible ghost writer of We Europeans, Charles Seligman. Seligman argued in an undated paper (presumably from the late 1930s) that 'Jews being human beings have every human characteristic; some may be more pronounced than others on account of their cultural history'. Charles Seligman MSS, London School of Economics (File 11/1/2) (undated).
126. Race and Culture, op. cit. (32). Views of this kind would perhaps have been more prevalent at the conference had not the ban on Jewish participation prevented the attendance of Morris Ginsberg, amongst others.
127. Haldane, Race and Culture op. cit. (68), 142.
128. Huxley and Haddon, Race and Culture op. cit. (27), 124, 127.
129. See Werskey, Race and Culture op. cit. (18), 205-10, 294;
130. and McGucken, Race and Culture op. cit. (25), 280-3.
131. Also see D. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity, Cambridge, MA and London, 1985, 215.
132. See Werskey, Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity op. cit. (18), 294.
133. See J. Huxley, Soviet Genetics and World Science: Lysenko and the Meaning of Heredity, London, 1949.
134. Hogben, Soviet Genetics and World Science: Lysenko and the Meaning of Heredity op. cit. (23), 47.
135. In the UNESCO statements 'race' was indeed presented as a socially constructed phenomenon, which needed the attention of social scientists, not biologists : ' National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cultural groups do not necessarily coincide with racial groups; and the cultural traits of such groups have no demonstrated genetic connection with racial traits. ' See the UNESCO Statement on Race, July 1950, in Montagu, Soviet Genetics and World Science: Lysenko and the Meaning of Heredity op. cit. (1), 174.
136. Significant research on these ideas was conducted in the post-war period by social scientists. See the work of Ruth Glass, Sheila Patterson, Michael Banton and Anthony Richmond amongst others.
137. See Mazumdar, op. cit. (3), 257.
138. J. B. S. Haldane, 'Daedalus' or Science and the Future, London, 1924, 82.