Amateur scientist, traveler, author, and mathematician who was the intellectual spark for the modern eugenics movement. Galton was the seventh and youngest child of a wealthy banking family from Birmingham, England. He was related on his mother’s side to the famous naturalist Charles darwin. A prodigy in various subjects, admirers have estimated his childhood IQ as high as 200. Galton later studied medicine at King’s College and mathematics at Cambridge, but because of health problems he withdrew early and earned passing marks in only a few classes. In 1845, on the death of his father, he received a substantial inheritance that supported him comfortably for the rest of his life and effectively ended his practical need for formal or professional education. As a young man, he traveled extensively in Africa and the Middle East, gaining a reputation as an explorer that eventually earned him entry into such scientific organizations as the British Royal Society. He married Louisa Butler in 1853 and lived most of his remaining life in London. Ironically, the couple never had children.
Because of his wealth, Galton never had to work or teach and thus pursued science largely at his own leisure. In spite of this, his intellectual reputation in Victorian Britain was considerable. During his long life, he published a number of influential works on subjects as diverse as meteorology, statistics, psychology, criminology, and heredity. A firm believer in qualification, his most important work dealt with the application of mathematical analysis to the life and human sciences. He is generally credited with originating the statistical concepts of regression and correlation, giving birth to psychological testing in England, and providing the conceptual basis for the science of fingerprinting.