Sir Francis Galton, 1822-1911*

Francis Galton was born on 16th February 1822 (the same year as Mendel). His mother Violetta (1783-1874) was the daughter of Dr. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), a medical practitioner in Derby who had scientific interests, particularly in plants, and produced various mechanical inventions. He was also grandfather to Charles Darwin. Galton's father, Samuel Tertius Galton (1783-1844), was a Birmingham banker but possessed a number of scientific instruments. His father (Francis Galton's grandfather), Samuel Galton (1735-1832), also had scientific interests, including colour vision, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Francis Galton became a medical student in Birmingham in 1838, subsequently attending King's College London, Cambridge and St. George's Hospital. However, he gave up his medical studies in 1844 after the death of his father [5,17]. Later he travelled in Egypt and South Africa about which he wrote various articles and books, including “The Art of Travel” (1855) [6] of which a total of eight editions were published. His scientific work from these expeditions won him his first medal, the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society awarded in 1853. Subsequently he wrote further on scientific matters, mainly concerning geography, travel and meteorology. He worked on stereoscopic maps and problems associated with wind currents and sailing ships and introduced the word “anticyclone”. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1856 and later to the Council of the Royal Geographical Society, becoming Secretary of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1863 [4,19].