Eugenicist. Fellow of the Royal Society. Born in Birmingham, England, educated in Boulogne, Kenilworth and King Edward's School, Birmingham; trained in medicine at Birmingham General Hospital and Kings College London until 1840; B. A. Trinity College, Cambridge. A generous inheritance allowed him to devote his life to travel, and to the study of a succession of virtually unexplored fields: the weather; physical and mental characteristics in man and animals; the influence of heredity on them; heredity in twins; fingerprints and personal identification. His study of "those agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally" led him to invent the work "eugenics" to describe his work. He founded the Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics at University College London (later renamed Galton Laboratory, Department of Human Genetics and Biometry) to further his work.