This is a very moderately priced and meticulously chronicled history of the Eugenics movement in Australia, based almost entirely on archival material, personal interviews and contemporary newspaper accounts. The Eugenics movement largely existed during the first half of the 20^th century when, for the most part, Australia was very sparsely populated and the various states had only limited levels of inter-communication. Therefore it is no real surprise that each state had its own Eugenics organization, most of which survived only for short periods of time. The exceptions were the two numerically largest states, New South Wales and Victoria, which hosted the Racial Improvement Society of New South Wales (later the Racial Hygiene Association) and the Eugenics Society of Victoria, respectively. While the Sydney-based Racial Hygiene Association successfully transmogrified itself into the Family Planning Association in 1960 and continues in this role, the Eugenics Association of Victoria ceased to exist in 1962.

According to the author, the origins of Eugenics in Australia emerged from two prevailing preoccupations of the late 19^th century. The first was ‘racial suicide’, an essentially Australian concern which compared the small and slowly growing population of Australia with the rapidly expanding populations of increasingly powerful Asian countries to the north, and assumed that invasion would result unless the (European) population of the country was quickly augmented and the tropical north of the country settled. It is interesting that one of the first pieces of legislation passed by the Federal Parliament of the newly created Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 was the Immigration Restriction Act, more widely known as the White Australia Policy. Using a device borrowed from the South African Colony of Natal, the Act limited immigration to those who could pass a dictation test in any European language of the testing officer’s choice, which not surprisingly proved to be a major impediment for persons of non-European origin.

More conventionally, to boost the population size after the serious losses suffered by the Australian forces in World War I, in 1920-1921 the State Labor Government of New South Wales appointed a Minister for Motherhood, a Mr. J.J. McGirr who had established his credentials for the post as a father of nine children. Adult immigration from the U.K. also was encouraged by the British Empire Settlement Act of 1922, which simultaneously sought to populate Australia while reducing unemployment and urban overcrowding in the mother country. The post-World War II equivalent, that saw children sent to Australia from U.K. orphanages and families described as destitute, frequently without their express permission, was the subject of a number of harrowing reports in the 1990s and resulted in the payment of compensation by the U.K. government and the Roman Catholic Church in Australia. It also illustrates how well-intentioned schemes can go disastrously awry.

The second major area of concern was ‘racial decay’, a more global theme pursued by many national Eugenic movements, which predicted an inevitable decline in the ‘national stock’ because of the lesser fertility of the more successful and worthy sections of society by comparison with those regarded as being feckless and of lesser capacity. This perspective was heightened by controversy surrounding the introduction of a £5 child birth bounty in 1912, albeit restricted to white mothers only, which was criticized in the Eugenics Review on the grounds that it might encourage ‘…the birth of mentally deficient and unemployable of pauper stock’. Perhaps as a result, in the subsequent 1928 Royal Commission on Child Endowment or Family Allowance it was stated that ‘..eugenic considerations…must be taken into account’. Allied to these concerns was a strain of Social Darwinism expressed through the problems resulting from ‘racial poisons’, i.e., venereal disease, TB, prostitution, alcoholism and criminality, with plans to be made for ‘…dealing with society’s racially contaminated unfit and misfit’.

A surprising feature of the book is that the author states that fewer than 50 people in Australia contributed significantly to the eugenics movement. One such person was Henry Twitchin, an unmarried pastoralist born in Newbury, Berkshire in 1869. Having completed a course in agricultural college in England, Twitchin emigrated to Western Australia in 1890 where he established a major stock raising enterprise. He joined the U.K. Eugenics Education Society (EES) in 1911 and in 1922 wrote to the then President, Major Leonard Darwin, indicating his intention to financially support the EES, and to leave his estates for the promotion of Eugenics. By the time of his death in 1930 Twitchin had retired to the French Riviera but continued his association with the EES and later the Eugenics Society. The monies derived from the sale of the estates enabled the Eugenics Society to conduct its works over the course of the next 50+ years, and in turn they have contributed to the very healthy finances of its successor body, the Galton Institute. It is therefore rather sad to learn that in obituaries of Twitchin published in The Times, Nature and The Eugenics Review, in themselves recognition of his perceived public importance, Leonard Darwin was less than gracious in his comments, summarized by the author as ‘boorish and unprincipled’. The more so since Twitchin signed a codicil on the day of his death after an appendix operation, leaving his French properties to the Eugenics Society.

This is a book to engage anyone with an interest in the development of Eugenics during the early decades of the 20^th century, and the range of topics covered is not limited to Australia. From an Australian perspective there are many subjects from the Eugenics era that have current resonance, for example, the rise of the xenophobic One Nation political party during the 1990s, and public and governmental attitudes to asylum seekers. Of greatest importance, and an area that is rather lightly covered in the book, is the position of Indigenous Australians in the wider society. Dr. Wyndham touches on the forcible removal of large numbers of part-Aboriginal children from their mothers, to be raised in Children’s Homes or by white foster-parents, a policy introduced on the grounds that the Aboriginal peoples were destined for extinction. This policy of assimilation, which was followed with especial vigour by A.O. Neville the Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia and continued until 1970, continues to cause great distress and hardship for many Aboriginal families, and is a cause of much mistrust. Another book dealing with this very sad feature of Australia’s recent history would add greatly to the history of Eugenics in the country.

Professor Alan Bittles
Edith Cowan University
Western Australia