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BART SCHOFIELD

THAT DARK SCIENCE:

EUGENICS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY AUSTRALIA

1. The Eugenics Tree, The American Philosophical Society, CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

BART SCHOFIELD
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The mathematics building at the

University of Melbourne is named for an
academic whose work had absolutely
nothing to do with that particular
discipline. The tribute has survived
criticism, petitions and campaigns to have
it renamed by the Universitys
contemporary students and academics
who consider it an offensive reminder of a
less enlightened past.1 The building, which
previously housed the anatomy school, is
titled in recognition and honour of
Professor Richard Berry, an anatomist,
anthropologist and neurologist who
worked at the University and helped to
rejuvenate the department between 1906
and 1929.2 Berry was also an ardent and
extremely influential proponent of
eugenics, that dark science which led to
some of the most severe horrors of the
Holocaust.
Until Carol Bacchis 1980 revelation that
proponents of eugenics were active in
Australia in the early part of the twentieth
century this chapter of Australian history
was subject to amnesia, obscurity and
sometimes, suppression.3 Bacchis study
highlighted the impact of environmental
eugenics on social reforms while
discounting the significant influence that
proponents of hereditary eugenics, like
Richard Berry, had on policy makers and
the press. Scholarship after Bacchi
suggests that hereditary eugenics in
Australia was an extremely influential
theory that had a significant effect on the
development of educational policies and
birth control and provided the justification
for racist policies and practices.4 As a
nation that was eager to prove itself
progressive and strong, and already
experimenting with racial purity, Australia
proved a ripe ground for proponents of
eugenics to take root and spread their
word. Seldom acknowledged among
historians and the wider Australian public
is the significant influence that eugenics,
particular the hereditary branch, had on
Australian society throughout the first half
of the twentieth century. Seeking to
continue shedding light on this chapter of
history this article will discuss eugenics
and its influence in Australia.

BART SCHOFIELD

Background on Eugenics
Conceived by Charles Darwins cousin, Sir
Francis Galton, in 1883 eugenics is the
idea that the human race can be improved
by controlled breeding to increase the
occurrence of desirable heritable
characteristics.5 It is a misapplication of
Darwins theory of evolution that places
nature over nurture and incorporates
pseudoscientific practices such as
craniometry (head measuring) in an
attempt to identify correlations with
intelligence. The central idea to eugenics is
that heredity is an impassable barrier for
some individuals and that those people

2. Eugenics, Gennie Stafford, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

An example of the type of imagery and
propaganda used to promote Eugenics.

should be prevented from procreating.

Secondary to heredity is the view that an
individuals environment affects their
development, however, eugenics implies
that those considered inferior are
incapable of gaining benefit from
environmental reforms or education. In
practice eugenics proved little more than a
rationale for racism and class-based
discrimination. Eugenics was embraced to
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varying degree by several countries as well

as Canada and the United States who along
with the Scandinavian countries and
Germany imposed the most severe eugenic
measures.6 James Gillespie identifies that
The language of eugenics was a pervasive
discourse which structured most interwar
debate on the relationship between the
health of individuals and national welfare.
7 In the first half of the twentieth century
Australia was a nation that saw itself as
vulnerable to racial dilution and
susceptible to the imported European
anxiety about the decline and degeneration
of civilisation.8 Eugenics in Australia was
seen as a solution to these perceived
problems. Its theories reinforced
assumptions about Indigenous people and
their future as well as providing further
ammunition for the White Australia policy
and immigration restrictions. Eugenics
was such a persuasive philosophy that two
separate lobby groups were formed in
Melbourne and one in NSW and on several
occasions States came close to enacting
legislation that allowed for its more
sinister practices of segregation and
sterilisation.
People
Proponents of eugenics were active in
Australia from virtually the beginning of
the twentieth century. Arguably, its most
notorious and ardent champion was
Richard Berry, the aforementioned
professor of anatomy at the University of
Melbourne. Berry was an English scientist
interested in anatomy, neurology and
anthropology whose work relied on and
reflected the eugenic assumption of rotten
heredity.9 For over 20 years Berry
lectured both publicly and for the
University, spreading and advocating for
hereditary eugenics and the
institutionalisation, segregation and
sterilisation of individuals seen as
eugenically unfit. His research included
measuring inmates heads at Melbourne
Gaol and Pentridge Prison in order to
determine the amount of brain in cubic
centimetres possessed by a class of the
community which is presumably of an

BART SCHOFIELD

inferior position in the human scale of

society.10 Like eugenicists in other
nations, the primary target of Berrys
studies were those members of the
population categorised as mentally
deficient, mentally defective and socially
inefficient. These were loosely defined
categories that included alcoholics, people
suffering mental illness, people with low
I.Q.s and people engaged in lifestyles
deemed deviant such as homosexuals and
sex workers.11 In a letter to the Eugenics
Review in 1930, Berry gave his views
about the extermination (by gas chamber)
of the more severely disabled and
undesirable members of the population,
stating there would be many who would
agree with me that such an act of
extinction would be the kindest, wisest,
and the best things one could do for all
concerned.12 In a further demonstration
of the severity of his opinions Berry goes
on in this letter to describe these
individuals as human refuse.13 Berrys
obsession in proving a correlation between
head size and intelligence and his
hierarchical theories about race also led
him to measure and collect the skulls and
skeletons of Indigenous people. The
collection, which consisted of the remains
of over 400 individuals was only recently
discovered and returned to the Indigenous
community for repatriation, over 70 years
after Berrys departure from the
University and Australia.14
Another prominent eugenics advocate was
William Ernest Jones, the Inspector
General for the Insane. Jones was a friend
of Berry and together they formed the
driving force behind eugenics in Victoria
during the 1910s and 1920s.15 A report
from the Argus in March, 1913 reflects
Jones eugenic assumptions about class
and racial superiority. Quoting Jones, the
Argus calls for tighter immigration
restrictions in Victoria stating that
immigrants had been responsible for an
increase in insanity in this State.16
William Jones was also responsible for
carrying out the National Survey of Mental
Deficiency in 1928. His findings reflected
the general hysteria regarding the
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BART SCHOFIELD

3. The Eugenics Education Society in New South Wales, Luncheon in honor of Dr. C.B. Davenport (standing second
from left), Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

increase in mental deficiency.17 Like

Berry, Jones was an advocate of the
sterilisation of the eugenically unfit,
although he was less optimistic about its
wider acceptance acknowledging that, to
be really effective it would have to be
applied to such a very large number of
persons that public outcry would soon
make it impossible.18 Jones and Berrys
influence on Australian, particularly
Victorian, society is evident in the
organisations and attempted legislation
that were motivated by their work.
Societies
The interest that Berry and his fellow
eugenics proponents generated led to the
formation of the Eugenics Education

Society of Melbourne as well as the Racial

Hygiene Association of New South Wales
and the Eugenics Society of Victoria. Each
of these organisations passionately
advocated hereditary eugenics as well as
the institutionalisation and sterilisation of
those not eugenically fit and aimed to
lobby state and federal governments for
the implementation of eugenics inspired
legislation. Both of the Victorian
organisations memberships and
subscriber lists consisted of some of
Melbournes most prominent and
influential medical and education
professionals as well as politicians and
court officials.19 The Eugenics Education
Society also boasted affiliations with
Charles Davenport, a leader of the eugenics
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BART SCHOFIELD

movement in the US and founder of the

Eugenic Records Office in New York.20 In
July of 1914, the Argus announced the
Eugenics Education Societys formation,
naming its committee members, including
William Ernest Jones and Alfred Deakin
among others, and stating its objectives as:
(1) To set forth persistently the
national importance of eugenics in
order to modify public opinion, and

to create a sense of responsibility in

the respect of bringing all matters
pertaining to human parenthood under
the domination 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 affect the improvement
of the race.
(3) To further eugenic teaching at
home and elsewhere.21
The Eugenics Society of Victoria held
similar objectives and conceptions. In its
second publication, Eugenics and the
Future of the Australian Population,
Wilfred Agar outlines the Societys central
theory as:
The total elimination of reproduction
by mental defectives and the insane,
brought about by sterilisation or
confinement in institutions, or even its
partial elimination by voluntary
sterilisation and contraceptive
instruction, would result in a steady
reduction in the number of person
suffering from theses conditions, and
also a gradual rising of the level of
intelligence in the general population.22
The Eugenics Education Society folded
shortly after the breakout of Word War 1
while the Eugenics Society of Victoria,
which lasted until 1961, eventually
softened its stance and embraced
environmental improvements informed by
eugenics such as slum clearance and birth
control.23 The Racial Hygiene Society
eventually shed its eugenic goals and
morphed into the Family Planning
Association.24 In alliance with these
societies, proponents of eugenics included
the press, the Protestant Church and
Womens groups.25 Together these groups
gained the momentum to urge State
governments to pursue eugenics informed
legislation.

4. An article from The Argus, 14 July 1914,

reporting on the formation of The Eugenics
Education Society.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/
10796010

Attempted Legislation
The introduction and near enactment of
three separate bills in Victoria, as well as
the various attempted and adopted eugenic
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legislation throughout other Australian

states demonstrates the influence eugenics
proponents had in the early twentieth
century. Unlike several other countries,
provisions for sterilisation in these bills
were swiftly defeated in favour of
compulsory institutionalisation of the
mentally deficient. As was the case with
the Mental Deficiency bill in Western
Australia that originally called for the
compulsory sterilisation of mental

BART SCHOFIELD

defectives before entering into

marriage.26 The first two bills proposed to
the Victorian Parliament in 1926 and 1929
passed the Legislative Assembly and were
expected to pass the Legislative Council
until constitutional crises of both minority
Labour Governments interrupted their
ratification.27 The 1939 bill, which
according to the Argus was in many
respects a duplicate of the bill introduced
in 1929,28 managed to pass both houses
but was never actually enacted. Ross Jones
has speculated that this was possibly due
to the outbreak of World War Two and the
discrediting of eugenics as a legitimate
scientific theory.29 He acknowledges,
however, that because the role eugenics
played in the atrocities of the Holocaust
were not yet discovered, the amount to
which its theories were undermined in
Australia is debatable.30

6. The Age reported on the more extreme measures

proposed with eugenics legislation in W.A.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/203266050

5. The Argus reporting on the latest eugenics bill

before parliament and discussing its similarity with
earlier bills.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/12447659

Resistance to eugenics and the various

legislation proposals in Australian States
were virtually non-existent. The Catholic
Church maintained the only opposition to
its theory of heredity, arguing against the
1929 Victorian bill in its mouthpiece, the
Advocate, that mental deficiency is no
more inherited than wooden legs and
identifying that it is always the poorer
paid of manual workers who are the first to
be victimised.31 The nearly complete lack
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of opposition to the proposed legislation in

Victoria demonstrates the persuasive
influence of eugenics and its proponents
during the first half of the twentiethcentury.32
Conclusion
The mood of anxiety that Richard Berry,
William Jones and their fellow eugenics
proponents fostered in Australia during
the early twentieth-century reflected
global anxieties about nationalism, racial
purity and mental health. Australia was
not isolated in its experimentation with
eugenics and nor is it alone in its amnesia
regarding this chapter of history.
Continued historical analysis of the
eugenics era in Australia and elsewhere
will undoubtedly broaden understandings
of its impact on the development of
contemporary society.

BART SCHOFIELD

Ross Jones, The master potter and the

rejected pots: eugenic legislation in Victoria,
1918-1939, Australian Historical Studies,
29:133,(1999), p.322.
7

James Gillespie in Ross Jones, The master

potter and the rejected pots: eugenic
legislation in Victoria, 1918-1939, Australian
Historical Studies, 29:133,(1999), p.323.
8

Mary Cawte, Craniometry and eugenics and

Australia: R.J.A. Berry and the quest for social
efficiency, Historical Studies, 22:86, p.36.
9

Lionel Penrose on Berry in Daniel J. Kelves,

In The Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the
uses of Human Heredity, (Oakland:University
of California Press, 1985), p.159.
10

R.J.A. Berry and L.W.G. Buchner, ' The

correlation of size of head and intelligence, as
estimated from the cubic capacity of brain of
355 Melbourne criminals' Proceedings of the
Royal Society of Victoria, vol. 25, p. 229.
11

Notes

Ross Jones, The master potter and the

rejected pots: eugenic legislation in Victoria,
1918-1939, Australian Historical Studies,
29:133,(1999), p.322

Gary Foley, Eugenics, Melbourne University

and me, Tracker Magazine, February, (2012).
http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays/tracker/
tracker10.html, accessed online 28
September 2015.

12

Richard Berry, The lethal chamber

proposal, Eugenics Review, 22:2, (1930), p.
155.
13

ibid.

K.F. Russell, Berry, Richard James Arthur

(1867-1962), Australian Dictionary of
Biography, National Centre of Biography,
Australian National University, http://
adb.anu.edu.au/biography/berry-richardjames-arthur-5220/text8703, published first in
hardcopy 1979, accessed online 29 October
2015.
3

Rob Watts in Ross Jones, The master potter

and the rejected pots: eugenic legislation in
Victoria, 1918-1939, Australian Historical
Studies, 29:133,(1999), p.319.

14

Gary Foley, Eugenics, Melbourne

University and me, Tracker Magazine,
February, (2012), Erica Cervini, Call to
rename uni building, The Age, 23 Feb. 2003,
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/
2003/02/22/1045638538311.html, accessed
02 Oct 2015.
15

Ross Jones, Removing some of the dust

from the wheels of civilisation: William Ernest
Jones and the 1928 Commonwealth Survey of
Mental Deficiency, Australian Historical
Studies, 40:1, (2009), p. 67.

Stephen Garton, Sound minds and healthy

bodies: Re-considering eugenics in Australia,
1914-1940, Australian Historical Studies,
26:103. Gary Foley, Eugenics, Melbourne
University and me, Tracker Magazine,
February, (2012).
5

Oxford Dictionaries, Eugenics, Oxford

Dictionaries, 2015, http://
www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/
eugenics, accessed 10 October 2015.

16

Undesirable Immigrants, The Argus, 20

Mar. 1913, p.11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.newsarticle10773086, accessed 05 October 2015.
17

Ross Jones, Removing some of the dust

from the wheels of civilisation: William Ernest
Jones and the 1928 Commonwealth Survey of
Mental Deficiency, Australian Historical
Studies, 40:1, (2009), p.65.

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BART SCHOFIELD

18

Ross Jones, The master potter and the

rejected pots: eugenic legislation in
Victoria, 1918-1939, Australian Historical
Studies, 29:133,(1999), p.328

28

19

29

Eugenics The Argus, 14 Jul 1914, p.

11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.newsarticle10796010, accessed 02 October
2015. Erica Cervini Out of the shadows
The Age, Sept. 20, 2011,http://
www.theage.com.au/it-pro/out-of-theshadows-20110919-1khqf.html, accessed
02 Oct 2015.
20

Biography 14: Charles Benedict

Davenport (1866-1944), DNA Learning
Centre, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory,
https://www.dnalc.org/view/16339Biography-14-Charles-BenedictDavenport-1866-1944-.html, accessed 04
October 2015.

Bill Revived, The Argus (Melbourne,

Vic. : 1848 - 1957) 23 Jul 1938, p.2, http://
nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12447659,
accessed 01 October 2015.
Ross Jones, The master potter and the
rejected pots: eugenic legislation in
Victoria, 1918-1939, Australian Historical
Studies, 29:133,(1999), p.341
30

ibid.

31

Science and Culture Advocate

(Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954) 26 Sep
1929, p.9, http://nla.gov.au/nla.newsarticle171662158, accessed 02 October
2015.
32

Ross Jones, The master potter and the

rejected pots: eugenic legislation in
Victoria, 1918-1939, Australian Historical
Studies, 29:133,(1999), p.341.

21

Eugenics The Argus, 14 Jul 1914, p.

11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.newsarticle10796010, accessed 04 October
2015.
22

Wilfred Agar, Eugenics and the Future

of the Australian Population, Melbourne:
Brown, Prior and Anderson Pty. Ltd.,
(1939), p.7.
23

Ross Jones, Eugenics in Australia: the

secret of Melbournes elite, The
Conversation, Sept. 21 2011, http://
theconversation.com/eugenics-inaustralia-the-secret-of-melbourneselite-3350, accessed 02 October 2015.
24

Jane Carey, The racial imperatives of

sex: birth control and eugenics and
Britain, the United States and Australia in
the interwar years, Womens History
Review, 21:5, p.743.
25

Stephen Garton, Sound minds and

healthy bodies: Re-considering eugenics
in Australia, 1914-1940, Australian
Historical Studies, 26:103, p.164, p.170.
26

Mental Defective, Drastic Measures

Proposed, The Age, 27 Nov 1929, p.14.
http://nla.gov.au/nla.newsarticle203266050, accessed 01 October
2015.

Images
1. The Eugenics Tree, The American Philosophical Society,
CC BY-NC-ND, https://www.dnalc.org/view/16330Gallery-14-Eugenics-Tree-Emblem.html.
2. Eugenics, Gennie Stafford, CC BY-NC-ND, https://flic.kr/
p/6iPPUF.
3. The Eugenics Education Society in New South Wales,
Luncheon in honor of Dr. C.B. Davenport (standing
second from left), Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, CC
BY-NC-ND 3.0, https://www.dnalc.org/view/11683Eugenics-Education-Society-of-New-South-Walesluncheon-in-honor-of-C-B-Davenport-standing-2nd-fromleft-Sydney-Australia-9-25-1914-.html
4. Eugenics. Victorian Society Formed The Argus, 14 July
1914, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/10796010
5. Bill Revived The Argus, 23 July 1938 http://
trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/12447659
6. Mental Defectives, Drastic Measures Proposed The
Age, 27 November 1929, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/
article/203266050

27

Ross Jones, The master potter and the

rejected pots: eugenic legislation in
Victoria, 1918-1939, Australian Historical
Studies, 29:133,(1999), p. 340.+arg1938

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BART SCHOFIELD

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary
Agar, Wilfred, Eugenics and the Future of the Australian Population, Melbourne: Brown, Prior and Anderson
Pty. Ltd., (1939).
Berry, Richard, The lethal chamber proposal, Eugenics Review, 22:2, (1930), pp.155-156.
Berry, Richard and Buchner, L.W., ' The correlation of size of head and intelligence, as estimated from the
cubic capacity of brain of 355 Melbourne criminals' Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, vol. 25.
Bill Revived, The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957) 23 Jul 1938, p.2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.newsarticle12447659, accessed 01 October 2015.
Cervini, Erica, Call to rename uni building, The Age, 23 Feb. 2003, http://www.theage.com.au/articles/
2003/02/22/1045638538311.html, accessed 02 Oct 2015.
Cervini, Erica Out of the shadows The Age, Sept. 20, 2011,http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/out-of-theshadows-20110919-1khqf.html, accessed 02 Oct 2015.
Eugenics. Victorian Society Formed The Argus, 14 Jul 1914, p.11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.newsarticle10796010, accessed 04 October 2015.
Foley, Gary Eugenics, Melbourne University and me, Tracker Magazine, February, (2012). http://
www.kooriweb.org/foley/essays/tracker/tracker10.html, accessed online 28 September 2015.
Mental Defective, Drastic Measures Proposed, The Age, 27 Nov 1929, p.14. http://nla.gov.au/nla.newsarticle203266050, accessed 01 October 2015.
Oxford Dictionaries, Eugenics, Oxford Dictionaries, 2015, http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/
english/eugenics, accessed 10 October 2015.
Science and Culture Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954) 26 Sep 1929, p.9, http://nla.gov.au/nla.newsarticle171662158, accessed 02 October 2015.
Undesirable Immigrants, The Argus, 20 Mar. 1913, p.11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10773086,
accessed 05 October 2015.

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BART SCHOFIELD

Secondary
Biography 14: Charles Benedict Davenport (1866-1944), DNA Learning Centre, Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory, https://www.dnalc.org/view/16339-Biography-14-Charles-Benedict-Davenport-1866-1944-.html,
accessed 04 October 2015.
Carey, Jane, The racial imperatives of sex: birth control and eugenics and Britain, the United States and
Australia in the interwar years, Womens History Review, 21:5, pp.733-752.
Cawte, Mary, Craniometry and eugenics and Australia: R.J.A. Berry and the quest for social efficiency,
Historical Studies, 22:86, pp.35-53.
Garton, Stephen, Sound minds and healthy bodies: Re-considering eugenics in Australia, 1914-1940,
Australian Historical Studies, 26:103, pp.163-181.
Jones, Ross, Eugenics in Australia: the secre of Melbournes elite, The Conversation, Sept. 21 2011, http://
theconversation.com/eugenics-in-australia-the-secret-of-melbournes-elite-3350, accessed 02 October 2015.
Jones, Ross, Removing some of the dust from the wheels of civilisation: William Ernest Jones and the 1928
Commonwealth Survey of Mental Deficiency, Australian Historical Studies, 40:1, (2009), pp.63-78.
Jones, Ross, The master potter and the rejected pots: eugenic legislation in Victoria, 1918-1939, Australian
Historical Studies, 29:133,(1999), pp.319-342.
Kelves, Daniel J., In The Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the uses of Human Heredity, (Oakland:University
of California Press, 1985).
Russell, K.F., Berry, Richard James Arthur (1867-1962), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre
of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/berry-richard-james-arthur-5220/
text8703, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 29 October 2015.

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