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C. P. Blacker: Letters 1920-1963Before we look at his letters, who was Blacker? Here is some context.Carlos Paton Blacker 1895-1975: Brief LifeBlacker gave the appearance of a quintessential ex-Etonian, Coldstream Guard officer, but appearances, as we know, can be deceptive. He was in fact a cosmopolitan and dedicated medical worker and reformer, working tirelessly to improve the lives of ordinary men and women, whose health had been ruined by the Great War of 1914-18. He was an advocate of birth control, alongside many feminists, at a time when the subject was almost a taboo subject. He was also a powerful force for moderation, and careful scientific research into genetical issues, within the eugenics movement in Britain. It had sprung up in the late nineteenth century, inspired by Francis Galton’s almost obsessive advocacy, and was always in danger of being controlled by racist extremists, both right and left, who wanted to eliminate an unwanted underclass of poor and mental “defectives”.Personally, he was kindly, gentle and unfailingly polite, a true gentleman, and well liked, even by his opponents, although he could be tough and very persistent fighting for his many causes. He was a war hero in two world wars, and in a strong personal reaction to the trauma of the first world war, became an eminent psychiatrist.He was happily married and had two daughters who made names for themselves in languages and the arts during their long lives. Let us look at more details.As his name indicates Blacker came from a multi-cultural background. He was born on 8 December 1895 in Paris. His father was Carlos Blacker, described as a gentleman and man-about-town. His mother was Caroline, daughter of General Frost of the U. S. Army, of St Louis, Missouri, a distinguished soldier in the American Civil War. Blacker’s paternal grandmother was from a prominent Peruvian family, which included a Prime Minister of Peru. French was Blacker’s first language, and he remained bi-lingual, a useful asset in his numerous European medical and other conferences.Blacker was educated at Eton, while his family resided in Torquay and they then took off to Paris during the 1914-18 war. He meantime was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, studying biology (zoology) under the tutelage of Julian Huxley, who was to become a lifelong friend and collaborator, as the letters will show. Blacker passed his Oxford degree with distinction, and also excelled at boxing and swordsmanship. As an obituary in The Lancet commented, he “ excelled in life in everything he did. He had extraordinary enthusiasm and energy, courage and zest. He also had extraordinary elegance and personal charisma”.He served in the Coldstream Guards in the war, was mentioned in despatches for gallantry and awarded the Military Cross, being twice wounded. He lost a brother in the war and was much shaken, as were many other, by the trauma and needlessness of the war. He shared the common view that the war had destroyed “ the flower of the nation”, and was dysgenic. This led him into an interest in the eugenics movement.After Balliol Blacker qualified in medicine at Guy’s Hospital in 1925 He was registrar in the department of psychological medicine at Guy’s from 1927-36, also joining the staff of the Maudsley Hospital, London, for a time in the thirties: “ Blacker’s clinical career was spent at the Maudsley, where he exercised considerable influence. He had unusual gifts as a medical administrator, and his charm, good humour, and unfailing kindness made him irresistible. He made many innovations, including the system of record-keeping and registration, the systematic collection of clinical data, and the organisation of the outpatient department, where he himself did all his clinical work”. To finish the clinical side of his life, he was a major figure in sustaining the hospital during the difficult years after World War Two, as secretary, later chairman, of the medical committee. After his retirement he maintained an honorary appointment which allowed him to conduct a weekly outpatient clinic, almost until his death.He was again a hero during the second world war. In 1942 at the request of the Ministry of Health he was seconded from his role as regimental medical officer in the Coldstream Guards to conduct a nationwide survey of psychiatric facilities, work which aided the newly founded National Health System after 1945. In 1943 he was awarded the George Medal for bravery in rescuing a wounded officer in a minefield.He was prominent in the Ex-Services Mental Welfare Society and chairman of the Simon Population Trust. He continued to be active in the International Planned Parenthood Association.His central role in the English Eugenics Society can be followed up, for those interested, in the many works published on eugenics and the Society. He joined the Society early on, circa 1920, but from 1931 until 1961 he has been described as the driving force in it, first as general, then as honorary Secretary. He recruited a more diverse membership from his medical colleagues and more generally, “and he upgraded the society from a somewhat amateur to a professional body under distinguished presidents such as Horder, Carr-Saunders, Huxley and [Leonard] Darwin. His approach to eugenics was liberal in contrast to the authoritarian attitude prevalent in pre-war Germany which developed into the concept of race hygiene effected by measures such as compulsory sterilisation. He saw clearly that eugenic advance should come from the informed good sense and responsible decisions of in dividual parents…”. This will be apparent in his letters to Huxley. The two worked in close collaboration in the Society.Blacker’s publications include:Birth Control and the State (1926), Human Values in Psychological Medicine (1933), Voluntary Sterilisation (1934), Population and Fertility (1938) and Neuroses and the Mental Health System (1946).Blacker married (Helen) Maud Pilkington in 1923, when her family was living in Florence. Their daughter Carmen (1924-2009) became a scholar in Japanese language, while her sister Ann Thetis (1927-2006) became an accomplished painter and singer.Blacker’s friend A. D. Leigh wrote this about him in a memorial entry for the Royal College of Physicians:“ Blacker was every inch the ex-Etonian, ex- Coldstream Guards officer. Tall and spare, he ran five miles every morning before breakfast until his 65th birthday. Afraid of nothing and nobody, his chief interests were of a gentle kind – bird-watching and natural history. His approach to work was a direct one; it was the individual who must learn to discipline and control himself in adversity”.The LettersThe extracts below are taken from C. P. Blacker’s Correspondence held in the Wellcome Library of medical history, London.The first set of letters are to Julian Huxley, a long-term friend and fellow committee member of the English Eugenics Society, of which Blacker was Secretary for most of the inter-war years. The years covered are mainly from 1920 until 1939.C. P. Blacker [CPB] to Julian Huxley [JH] 24.3.1920, Torquay (where CPB was doing a Zoology course):“My Dear Huxley,How good of you to send me your paper…The end of last term was rather a night mare [sic], and I felt that if it had lasted a week longer I should have had a nervous collapse. I missed some of the lectures… and consequently found that the ones I did attend difficult to understand. Also – which [filled me] with horror, I missed many of your lectures… However, I find this a most agreeable and welcome change. There are 16 of us doing the course – all very nice fellows; we have had gorgeous weather, and four most interesting expeditions…We live extremely happily… and talk Zoology shop practically without ceasing… I hope you are getting on with your research and that Mrs. Huxley is well.”CPB to JH, 13.10.27, Somerset Hill, Dorking [Blacker’s home].“Sunday is a better day for me than Saturday. We would love to see [preferably] both of you here on Sunday November 13th or Nov. 20th. Come as early as you like and stay as late as you like. If you decide to come by train, I could meet you at Dorking and take you back there in the evening after dinner. [He then goes on to discuss Eugenics Committee business. One of the members did not agree with contraception, of which CPB was a strong advocate] … I told him that it did not matter in the least what he felt as long as he also felt that further investigation of contraceptive technique was desirable. That is the only point of view which is held in common by the whole Committee, the members of which differ considerably on other points of view. I think you agree with this?I am very sorry to hear that your boy has to go to Switzerland. It must be an anxiety for Mrs. Huxley. Please convey my regards to her”.CPB to JH, 5.1.28, Dorking.“I should like to have a talk with you at your club [about] 3 subjects of research which I have got out for the B. C. I. C.There was a certain amount of friction at the last committee meeting between [Havelock?] Ellis (in the chair) and myself. We lunched together yesterday and settled with regard to the next stages of which the next is that copies of the three drafts be sent to all the scientific members of the committee. These you will receive probably next week. Will you be at the meeting of the Council of the Eugenics Society on Wednesday 11th January?If so, call on him and we’ll have Talk afterwards?Ellis is, in my opinion, a good chap, but inclined to think that he is the only bloke on the planet who knows anything about research”.At this time Blacker and Huxley seem to have been colluding to prevent a certain Mrs. S. R. from becoming Treasurer of the Eugenics Society. I include a few examples of their machinations.CPB to JH, May 9th, 1928.“It seems to me that we are safeguarded against Mrs. S. R. by the fact that the committee is to consist of medical and scientific blokes alone. The only way she will get in, is as Treasurer. [The rules state] that the Treasurer and the Sec can be lay people. It is not…clear whether these officers will be members of the committee. If they are, in any case in fact… they will be able to attend all sub-committee meetings. [Blacker believed that Ellis was urging her to stand for Treasurer. Ellis was a supporter of women’s rights]. I … think that at all costs she should be prevented from becoming Treasurer. [She would have positions] of such a kind that influence will be capable of being exerted. I suggest that the best plan will be to accept the Report, and then bring influence to bear upon the ad hoc Selection Committee.I don’t quite know if it is proposed to appoint this Committee tomorrow. If it is so proposed, I shall propose you as a member. The battles can then be fought in the privacy of the ad hoc committee. Without the support of this ad hoc committee Mrs. S. R’s gun is spiked. Ellis may get up to say that he thinks Mrs. S. R. ought to get a win, having tried [for] the committee in the first instance”. CPB to JH 1.12.28, Maudsley Hospital, London.Blacker is giving an account of his seeing a Dr Helena Wright, who was “pushing” a proposal to be funded by a medical committee that Blacker was on. He thought it meritorious and there was a discussion of the various ways she could be paid: “I said that anything approaching a … system of payments on the scale of 3 guineas an hour…which is the prosperous consultant’s scale – was entirely out of the question for our committee. That sobered her ardour a little. She is a Jewess and ‘hot on the dibs’. I told her to submit to us a proposal of what she was prepared to do if she was at all dissatisfied”. Such stereotypes of avaricious Jews were common at the time, unfortunately.“Mrs Ellis gave a dinner to most of our committee the other night to make a favourable impression on Lady Denman, a daughter of Lord Cowdray & v. rich. I left rather early, but before my departure it was my impression that [the Edinburgh geneticist F. A. E.] Crewe was making an exceedingly unfavourable impression. Had his elocution not been so perfect one would have thought him tight, Among other things, he said it was a pity that we could not buy experimental [?] women in England as could be done in Egypt.That shook the feminists in the party who were sitting in a row, and before whom Crewe was sitting on a footstool, showing off. In certain respects that man seems to me to be an awful ass”.CPB to JH, 18.2.29, Maudsley Hospital (London County Council).“Dear HuxleyCould you dine with me at the {Coldstream] Guards Club 41 Brook Street at 8 pm next Sunday Feb 24th? It is about the only time I can manage this week. I am anxious to see you then, because it is going to be damned difficult for me to get away in time for the Research Sub-committee meeting, which should gather at 4.45 pm on Monday, I think (don’t you) …that the general meeting is at 5.30?Helena [Wright] has accepted the ?20 and is getting ahead, but I think we ought to get it on paper exactly what we expect her to do. It is very simple, really.I am going very canny about Norman Haire’s Sexual reform congress. Before you have anything to do with it, read the complete statement of aims of the ‘Weltlige’, as well as Haire’s watered down version for British consumption. They are precious near advocating general free love. But we can discuss that when we meet”.CPB to JH, 21.2.29. Maudsley Hospital.Blacker goes on, in a section labelled “Strictly Private”, to discuss further Haire’s Weltlige congress, the idea of which was discussed by a number of professionals meeting at Copenhagen the previous year. Blacker had sent the text of the aims to certain committees (presumably medical and contraception), conveying his concern that certain articles amounted to promotion of free love:“Norman Haire has asked me to read a paper in September of this year. I have refused. So, also, has Carr-Saunders, I think. I think that reforms in Sexual Relationships, [should come] with time and certainly independently of a World-League for promoting them – the idea of which I regard as somewhat ridiculous. Also…I don’t want to get involved with Norman Haire… [there were rumours Haire] had been “intimate with a policeman. He has a very bad name indeed in the Medical Profession”.CPB to JH, 24.2.29, Maudsley Hospital[Mercifully, this letter is typed. Blacker’s handwriting is almost indecipherable at times. Such letters are rare, sadly].“… About tomorrow’s committee meetings: I don’t know for certain whether I shall be able to get away from this place in time for the first, but I will do my utmost. Herewith a letter from Carleton, together with his ‘Interim Report’. With regard to the question he asks, I don’t know what you feel disposed to recommend to the Total Committee. For my part, I think that if we suggested that ?40 of the grant should go towards expenses, and the other ?35 to be divided between him and [Howard] Florey, it would be a fair partition. Of the ?20 allotted to Helena Wright, only about 10 [shillings] could have been used for expenses. I don’t think that it is reasonable to expect two men of the distinction of Carleton and Florey to do work of this kind out of pure love.In the agenda for the Research Sub-Committee, you will find under section 4 “Suggested Lines for further Research”. This is a scheme that I thought of, and have discussed with Carleton and Frank Cook, but which I would like to put before the Sub-committee personally. If I am not there, it would be better to be passed over.You will also find herewith a rough draft of my International Medical Report for this country. If you get time, I would like you to read through it, because a question arises with regard to the wording of Section 4 on page seven.This paragraph has to be read in the context of the report as a whole, in which you will find set forth, for the first time, how damned unsatisfactory are the statistics of existing methods.Taken in themselves, these statistics would deal a severe blow to the birth control movement. But I have sought, in this report, to use these figures as an exhortation to discovering other more satisfactory methods. At the last General Purposes Sub-committee meeting, Ellis and Winifred Cullis said that they thought the passage beginning with ‘It is hoped’ and ending at the bottom of the page, ought to be left out.For my part, I think that it would be a pity to do this. What I have said in this passage is perfectly true, as Crewe and Wiesner (the people referred to as being ‘conversant with the researches…’) are, actually, very optimistic. And, furthermore, I think that the medical world should be led to hope for results along these lines, and to encourage research along them. My particular reason for thinking this, will be found in the last paragraph but one of my note under ‘Miscellaneous Remarks’ on Uterine Action during Coitus.I have been very careful about what I have said of [Marie] Stopes and Norman Haire. I have verbally quoted the only remark that does not verge upon the insulting, that Haire has ever made about Stopes. In this way I hope that both of them will be gratified!”CPB to JH, 16.2.29, Maudsley Hospital.Here there is much talk about the research sub-committee and various medical appointees that he and Huxley favoured. It indicates the way in which things were managed in these circles, with a certain amount of patronage and influence being exerted by powerful people.At one stage the sub-committee approved that Blacker, not the committee, send a private letter to Marie Stopes, with Leonard Darwin’s approval, “in case she wants to draw in her horns” about a certain case. Marshall also suggested co-opting J. B. S. Haldane to the Research Committee “if he would come. An excellent suggestion, don’t you think? … Also Marshall and Adrian [?] proposed approaching Haldane and [Joseph] Needham in Cambridge to do the work on Spermatoxins. They are going to proceed with this themselves personally… Altogether, the committee is looking up well, and I was particularly [pleased] to see how keen the Cambridge people were – especially after the fracas that took place with them last year, when they all wanted to resign!”Certain class prejudices emerge at times. Blacker makes these comments about a medical man who was interested in spermatoxin research: “ He is very voluble, a very intense young man of about 28, with a nondescript accent and certain of the less attractive habits of speech of Eldon Moore, with whom he has doubtless been consorting in Edinburgh”.CPB to JH, 21.3.30, United University Club, Pall Mall.“I am sorry but I am afraid I don’t agree with you about the social problem group. This group is estimated as [comprising] 1/10 th of the total population of the country i.e. about 4 million people. [To work for the sterilisation of members of this group] we will have to make it the centre piece of our programme. The defectives and insane would be a side-show. If we try to view the [indecipherable] and Social Problem groups as side-shows, and make defectives the centre piece, we will be attacked together by Socialists and Catholics. They will say that we are trying to get through an ill-considered bill the full consequences of which we have not properly thought out. Our “apologia” … will be condemned as heavy in ballast in the wrong place. Ward Cutler agrees with me about this”.CPB to JH, 25.3.30, Somerset Hill.“I had a long talk to Darwin on Sunday. He approved, on the whole, of the Bill, but was doubtful as to the [wording] of clause 1 and suggested our consulting the Central Association for Mental Welfare and Sir F. Willis before definitely deciding to include it.I have written to Min Fox asking her to lunch with me on Monday (just before the meeting),I believe she is a Damned disagreeable and difficult woman” [he would later find her “charming”].CPB to JH, 6.4.30, Somerset Hill.My dear HuxleyJust back from France yesterday, and got your letter… I am taking the liberty of sending this [an article on the future of sperm in foetal tracts] to Barker, as he may get some valuable references out of it.I am also dealing with the Helena Wright affair. Also I am getting ahead with the pamphlet. Miss [Fox] was charming. I showed her our [sterilisation] bill, and though she approved strongly herself of our 1st clause (relating to the Social Problem group) she said she thought we would not have a cat’s chance of getting the bill through with it. I hope to see Sir Bernard M. tomorrow or Tuesday – anyhow before the Council meeting.I hope that you will have a thorough and complete rest amid the Lakes. I’ll do my best not to bother you, but I may with some occasional letters to keep you [in contact] with events, but which won’t [need] any answers. On your return, I shall look over carefully the very large number of activities in which you are engaged, and prune them fairly ruthlessly, sticking to the ones that you think are really important. I feel sure you will bust yourself if you go on as you have been doing since you returned from Africa. And several people who know you have felt the same. It would be a pity for a bloke with such splendid gifts and abilities as you to go and bust himself through eating up all his resources.Anyway, you get in as much sleep, walking fresh air and eating as you can, forget that there is such a place as London, and enjoy the woods and the spring”.CPB to JH, 17/4/30, Somerset Hill [typed]This is a long letter that discusses Blacker’s pamphlet on sterilisation of “mental defectives”. For detailed discussion of the genetic issues involved see my book Darwin’s Coat-Tails. There is also discussion of the merits of having a full-time woman medical secretary of the B. C. I. C., Blacker being sceptical on widespread grounds of the time (e.g., that women might spend too much time feeding babies). There is also insight into the infighting in such organisations. I shall just give a few extracts. Blacker proposed sending a copy of section VII to R. A. Fisher, the famous statistician, to “make sure that I have not misrepresented him, and I have suggested that he write a longer and more technical article... on the rapidity with which Mental defect could be eliminated by preventing defectives from breeding. The rapidity in question is obviously a product of a lot of different factors of which the hereditability of mental defect, and the degree of assortative mating among defectives are two. [Blacker here shows a more sophisticated understanding of the issue than some of his fellow eugenists].“At an ad hoc council meeting held yesterday, Sir. B’s proposals for reconstituting the Society were considered. You and I were shoved on to the executive Committee. As vice presidents, Mc. Bride, Bond, Fisher, Lord Buckmaster (or some other Lord? Salverson) and Lady Chambers, to represent her sex, were nominated. You will be pushed into the first vacancy as vice president which will occur in a year. Crew’s name was also discussed as first candidate, but was turned down with despatch in favour of yours, Crew, by the way, lost no time in sending in a long letter suggesting ways we might spend our money!” Blacker mentions at one stage re the woman secretary discussion: “… it transpires that the suggestion had come, of course, from Mrs. Spring-Rice. She dislikes me since that row over Chance, and she does not like the influence I have as Hon Medical Sec. This is a device for shifting me out of it, and getting her own oar well in again. She could, of course, do what she liked with a woman medical.She and Mrs. Farrer and Ellis are a caucus. For my part, I dont particularly care what is done… I also think it is doubtful whether it is in the committee’s interests to let Mrs. S. R. get her oar in again, She definitely drove Mrs. Florence and Chance off the Committee, and she was instrumental in deterring Haldane from joining it at the beginning. Also, she nearly drove Marshall out at the beginning, and I don’t think that she was entirely unconnected with Cook’s resigning. Also, she nearly had you and me off it after Chance resigned”.CPB to JH, 29.8.30, Somerset Hill [typed]Huxley had suggested a figure of about 7,000 sterilisations performed in California since 1909, all with the voluntary consent of the patient. Blacker suggested this be changed to “most” for “all”, as he had seen a reference to a compulsory operation in a recent press cutting that had been sent to the Eugenics Society, which had close links to American eugenists. Blacker also had news of the sex conference organised by Haire at which “There has been a bit of a bust about a row which Baker had with Voge…Among other things, Baker accused Voge of stealing his work, and called him a scoundrel in front of Crew and some other fellows. Crew and Voge have sent in voluminous letters about it, quite … bad-tempered and Crew wants to resign from the B. C. I. C. I have suggested letting the whole affair hold over until we all return, and then try to let everything die a natural death. It is a complicated story, which I will explain to you when we next meet, but I think that our friend Crew is largely to blame.I go to Zurich tomorrow for the birth control conference, and then I go to the sea side in Brittany for a week. I shall be back in London by about Sept 15th.Delighted you are getting on with your book, and that you are enjoying life. So am I really, except that I am rather depressed at having to leave this house”.CPB to JH, Sept 9th, 1930, Ker Patrick, Dinard [Brittany].Blacker writes of the Zurich birth control conference, from which he had just returned. He dubbed it a social success but not much else: “It was deluged by a Niagara of German visitors” and was an emotional issue in Germany, linked up with the abortion, sterilisation and free love questions: “B.C. is a political issue here in Germany, and they are at a much more elementary stage than the Americans and ourselves. They are still at the ‘crusading’ stage, and have not begun yet to examine their figures, or question their methods. [there followed an account of debate on vasectomy and its possible down effects upon sexual powers, Blacker sceptical of any]. There were some very agreeable members at the conference. One a Mrs. Helen Millikan, an American, was a stunner!! We all had an excellent time”. CPB to JH, 1.12.30, Guards Club.Dear Julian[note the use of Huxley’s first name, a sign of friendship or familiarity in upper class usage].This is quite a long letter to Huxley who was on a lecture tour in America, bringing him up to date on the Eugenics Society’s promotion of the sterilisation bill about to be considered by Parliament, and other matters. Blacker reported on a public meeting on the sterilisation issue, attended by approximately 500 people, which he regarded as “a very great success”. The speakers included “Lady Askwith” [Asquith), who spoke “splendidly”. Blacker did the summing up speech in which he summarised the society’s proposal (on which he had worked for years). The meeting was fully reported in the Daily Mail, which had a leader on sterilisation. Blacker commented: “Excellent result… We are well launched, I think…. The Medical and Scientific Committees of the H. of C.[House of Commons] received a delegation from the Soc. [Eugenics Society] last Tuesday consisting of [Dr. R.] Langdon-Down [Vice-President] and me”. There was discussion of technical issues with the bill, the role of medical doctors, relatives of patients, categories for sterilisation, how effective in eliminating “defects”, nature of hereditary disease, inclusion or not of the insane. “The upshot was that [A. P.]Church[Member for Wandsworth Central]] has kindly said that he would introduce the Bill within the 10 minute rule anytime we liked, and in any shape we liked. Lady Askwith asked him to lunch yesterday, and the two got on v. well. A point to note was that all the M. P. ‘s advocated a policy identical with that pressed by Lady Askwith; viz. that we should get as much publicity as possible, and limit answers to M. D.’s. They took the precisely opposite view to Lady Chambers”.Blackett reports on his distribution of 10,00 copies of the society’s pamphlet on the subject. He was working on a second edition and mentions some hostile criticism that he is seeking to answer. He notes that a number of local authorities had written approving of it, “some having passed resolutions to that effect which they forwarded to the Ministry of Health… Fisher won’t defend his 17% calculations, which are being criticised without reply from us. It is being used as a red-herring to side track the main issue”.“MacBride has been behaving v. badly lately. He attacked you in the Daily Mail after your article had appeared. I have drafted a letter from Sir Bernard [Mallett, president of the Eugenics Society] to the D. M. asking their readers to suspend judgement until you return from America and can reply. Mac B. [MacBride] has also written disassociating himself completely from the Ster: movement, saying it is intended to Side track the B. C. [birth control] movement, and saying that he wishes to hold himself free to attack it in the press if he wants to!! In short he is… being difficult and disgruntled… Fisher, also, has not come to a single executive committee or council meeting since I have been appointed. I do not feel the loss. His tardiness borders upon the pathological…Mrs Grant-Duff [hon.sec.of the Eugenics Society] … has been out of it for a fortnight. Mallett is looking v. ill, and is harassed by all these personal disputes – MacBride, Fisher, Mrs Hodson, Eldon Moore. His prognosis for life is bad, and if I were his medical advisor I would suggest his resigning the Presidency. When he does this, I should rely more [indecipherable] and [Dr. R] Langdon-Down, who has been splendid. He is worth vice-president” [which he became by 1931].“ I asked [Lancelot]Hogben to dinner the other night. He drank everything in sight, and we got on splendidly ( at least I thought so). He was v. co-operative about our [indecipherable], and said he would copulate with his wife in Watt’s consulting room, if he could be left alone and free for moments. Sportsman!!”There follows an account of Blacker’s attempts to get unanimity from the C. A. M. W. [Central Association for Mental Welfare] on sterilisation and its links with the Social Problem, on which there were divisions, with some wanting a Royal Commission on the issue: “ You will get a narration from Sir B. {Mallett]…on the subject… I defended our ster. Proposals at a Debate of Assistant M. D’s in the Lyceum.. at the Maudsley last Friday, and carried the motion by 24:3 votes”.CPB to JH, 6/11/31, Eugenics Society, 20, Grosvenor Gardens, London.“ After a bloody futile discussion on Wednesday, the Council by a majority of 10-6 voted for Kingsley [?] More, under [D. Ward] Cutler [hon.sec] who is to be the chairman of an editorial committee, Cutler taking all responsibility for the [Eugenics] Review. Cutler and Pitt-Rivers damned nearly came to blows afterwards, Cutler having been inexcusably rude during the meeting…A friend of mine wants to get into the Traveller’s Club [exclusive Pall Mall gentleman’s club] of which I see you are a member, if there is a good Silence Room. He goes to sleep after lunch every day. If there isn’t such a room he does not want to join. Is there? “ CPB to JH, 3/2/32, Eugenics Society.“My dear Julian,Just a line to thank you for a really delightful evening last night. I do that sort of thing sufficiently rarely to be able to enjoy it thoroughly when I do. I thought that the girls moved around the floor very well, especially Viola. I also enjoyed the nigger who sang.We had a damned awful Council meeting yesterday afternoon. Pitt Rivers wants to arrange a drawing room meeting at which he is to debate the question of Eugenics and Religion against G. K. Chesterton. Mrs S. D. was darting about like a snipe trying find out everyone’s opinion of this project. I expressed myself strongly against it and deprecated the way she had pushed P. R. [Pitt-Rivers] into proposing it. I think it very likely that G. K. Chesterton would mop the floor with him and make a fool of him and cause him to lose his temper. When he does this, he bellows. Ghastly”. CPB to JH, 17/3/32, Eugenics Society.Dear JulianSorry to bother you with shop when you almost certainly want to be left alone, but if you are to be in England between May 20th and 23rd, between which dates we are running the B. C. [birth control] and ster. Conferences, could you possibly spare Saturday morning (May 21st) to take the chair at a meeting on Spermatoxins… and Monday evening (23rd May) to take part in a debate on sterilization? The last of these is much the most important, and your support would be absolutely invaluable then. As a matter of fact these 4 days will be crucial days for the cause of negative [?] eugenics in England, and may initiate a new phaze in its history. Horder [Sir Thomas Horder, Vice-President Eugenics Society] is taking the chair at one of the sessions of the sterilization conference. If you will open the debate on the Monday evening, we will have such an overwhelmingly strong case that it might be easy-going … and may prove a triumphant success. The R.C.’s [Roman Catholics?] have mobilized a stage army which follows them around. The Thursday last, I found myself opposed, at a meeting of the Holborn branch of the B. M. A. to which I spoke on sterilization, by Haliday [?], Sutherland, Letitia Fairfield [an adult convert to Catholicism], and Roche. These made a massed and concerted attack on me afterwards. Rather annoying, but the impression they made was not much.… We bade adieu with relief to our lady cook on Tuesday, and for the present are servantless. If you would like to come to our place … any weekend we could raise beds for you without difficulty”.In a PS Blacker recalls that at lunch the previous Sunday his small daughter [Carmen?] went into meditation and had to be told to get on with her eating: “ Suddenly she looked up and said ‘ Mummy, why is Professor Huxley so vague and why is [her dog Fork] so sedate?’ “ CPB to JH 14/9/32, Eugenics Society.Blacker is complaining how a work he has spent a lot of time and effort on has been rejected by publishers on the grounds that it was not a commercial proposition, when publishers and editors were constantly sending material they wanted published on issues such as birth control, sex education, etc, to him at the Eugenics Review and asking him to write on such subjects for them “ in tediously familiar words ( - I refuse most of their solicitations), but when I have written something that has perhaps some originality… they send it back saying that it has no commercial value. Balls to all publishers! ( I say all this knowing that I would react in exactly the same way if I were in their shoes!!) I sent it along to Bloomfield yesterday who said he could get it published for me.Delighted to have you for the night any time next week. Say when…. I want to talk over with you the B, M. A. Centenary meeting, at which I see you are talking. A just opportunity to interest G. P.’s in collating pedigrees and in heredity. We’ll do that when you come to stay”.CPB to JH, 18/10/34, Eugenics Society, 69, Eccleston Square, London [note that the Society has relocated from Grosvenor Square].Blacker is trying to tee up Huxley to do a talk to the G. P. Committee of the Society on 23 November 1934 for a fee of ?10. He suggests they discuss how to divide up the topics between the speakers, including Blacker himself, with the secretary of the Mental [?] Hospitals Association Feldon [?], “ an excellent fellow”. He adds:“ I am sure a little relaxation would be good for you occasionally. Two attractive and intelligent [women], Miss Askwith and Miss Brown, want to meet you. Would you care to dine and dance with them at the Empress… on Tuesday Nov. 6th”.CPB to JH, 21st February 1936, Eugenics Society.Blacker sends Julian an extract from an appreciative letter by a Fellow of the Society, Mrs. Alice Jenkins, sent on the 20 February. It goes:“ Please accept the congratulations of my husband and myself on all the arrangements for the Galton Anniversary Dinner, 1936.It was the most enjoyable we have attended, and a few of us were so full of enthusiastic admiration for the lecture of Dr. Julian Huxley that we consider, - and hope, - it may be the beginning of a new era in the history of the Eugenics Society”.CPB to JH, 12 January 1937, Eugenics Society.Huxley had sent Blacker a letter from an A. E. Mason, which contained what seems a crackpot scheme for “a eutelegenetic service”, apparently some sort of artificial breeding proposal using human donors. Blacker warns Huxley off, advising him to have no dealings with Mason, who was once a member of the Society: “ He has also joined Miss Pocock’s Eugenic Alliance and appears to have had some dealings with the Joint Committee. He came here some time ago and was seen by Mrs. Collyer, upon whom he made an unfavourable impression. She formed an opinion that he was in some way abnormal”. Blacker could see “hideous complications” in such a scheme should the identity of “ the eutelegenetic father” be divulged.“Unless you were very careful, you might find yourself in the limelight of a press publicity which, I should think, would be embarrassing to you, and which, I should think, might be prejudicial to your position as Secretary of the Zoological Society”.CPB to JH, 10 April 1939, no address.Blacker is involved with Mallet in setting up a body that would support sterilisation but be seen to be independent of the Eugenic Society:“ It was decided that we shall call ourselves the ‘Committee helping Eugenic Sterilisation’. [R. A.] Fisher said he thought that the word ‘eugenic’ was rapidly becoming popular, and that it was our business to continue to popularise it… An executive committee will do the work. This will have power to coopt as many people as we like, who need not be members of the Eugenic Society or even sympathetic with the other aims of the Society. But the coopted members are all … to pull their weight with [other?] bodies. The nucleus of the executive committee will be a sub-committee of the Eugenics Council. Sir B. M. [Bernard Mallet] will be its chairman, a final Committee consisting of hundreds of supporters. These need neither be members of the Eugenic Soc, nor need they sympathise with all its aims”.It seems that the Eugenics Society is wanting to set up a sort of lap-dog organisation with apparently diverse membership, but is in reality run by a small elite of Society powerbrokers, and quietly funded by Society money ( they were cashed up as they had recently benefitted from a bequeath of over ?90,000 from a supporter). Blacker goes into some detail on these financial issues. There was disapproval “of the whole idea” in some quarters, or at least Blacker sensed this from the look on faces [he mentions the Dean in this respect. This is probably Dean Inge, an outspoken supporter of eugenics].He was concerned to involve the Social Problem group, with which they had had an uncertain relationship. Mallet was writing personal letters to possible sympathisers, asking their opinion of the plan; and there had been discussions with [Alexander] Carr-Saunders, the zoologist-demographer, some of whose ideas Blacker was keen to follow. (Carr-Saunders was an influential figure at the time, and his best-seller The Population Problem ( 1922) had foreshadowed the idea of a world “Population Bomb”, with global over-population threatening to cripple progress. Carr-Saunders suggested eugenics as one way of curbing the swarming of coloured peoples, later described less racially as “underdeveloped nations”). Blacker’s strategy was “ to indulge” and “placate” the Social Progress Group. Huxley’s response is not mentioned.Letitia Fairfield to CPB, May 3, 1962, 60 Beaufort Mansions, S. W. 3.Dear Dr BlackerI have just seen in the Eugenics Review for April a very kind and generous reference to myself in an article by you. I would like you to know how gratifying this is, partly because I was afraid I might often have gone beyond the bounds of fair controversy in the heat of the moment, but mainly because you always maintained such a reasonable and pleasant standard of debate yourself.I was very sorry that a man I greatly admired, Maurice Newfield, thought I had been very unfair in comparing Hitler’s misuse of sterilisation to some of the more extreme proposals put forward by English eugenists. As I had chapter and verse I couldn’t withdraw and his unfortunate illness and early death prevented me from coming to an understanding with him.I hope you will long continue to uphold your causes, in a way that keeps the issues clear. Alas I’m afraid my controversial days are nearly over. Being so deaf I find it safer to agree with people!Yours sincerelyLetitia FairfieldCPB to L. F., 7 May 1962 [typed]Dear Dr, Fairfield,How good of you to write! I did not much want to write that article having long ago become surfeited with the subject. A numbing sense of its staleness was difficult to overcome! But what I said about you was abundantly true. In a rather unusual way I think that we understood other’s point of view. I recall once saying to you that I could make a good speech attacking the proposals I was mostly defending. You replied that the speech I could make would be nothing to the one you could make if we were to change sides!The winds of change plus the fact that I have passed the retiring age (being now 65) have caused me to withdraw somewhat from the various lines of engagement – as you have done. I have had some friendly exchanges recently with Father O’Leary whom I much respect.I am sorry that Maurice Newfield died before you were able to straighten out what may in part have been a misunderstanding. But I know that he always had a great respect for you; so that everything is all right, I am sure.Again may I say how I appreciate your letter. So does my wife, to whom I showed it.Sincerely yoursC. P. Blacker ................
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