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Samuel Galton Jr.

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Samuel Galton Jr.
Samuel Galton
Born(1753-06-18)18 June 1753
Died19 June 1822(1822-06-19) (aged 69)

Samuel John Galton Jr. FRS (18 June 1753 – 19 June 1832) was an English arms manufacturer.[1]: 3  He was born in Duddeston, Birmingham, England, into a Quaker family. He would go on to join his father's gun manufacturing company.[2] With his father, he financed the slave-trading ship Africa.[3]

He was a member of the Lunar Society in December of 1785 and lived at Great Barr Hall, one of the meeting places for the Lunar Society.[4] He also built a house at Warley Woods, and commissioned Humphry Repton to lay out its grounds.[5]

Family life

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Galton married Lucy Barclay (1757–1817), the daughter of Robert Barclay Allardice, MP, 5th of Ury.[1] They would go on to have nine children together. His first born was Mary Anne Galton (1778–1856) who was a writer in the anti-slavery movement. She would marry Lambert Schimmelpenninck in 1806. Next, a daughter Priscilla Barclay Galton (1781–1784), died in early childhood.[6]: pl. A  Galton's third child was Sophia Galton (1782–1863[6]: pl. XXXV ) who married Charles Brewin. The Galton's first son, Samuel Tertius Galton (1783–1844) would also become a member of the Lunar Society.[1] He ended the family arms business in 1815.[7] He married Violetta Darwin in 1807 and had a son named Francis Galton (1822–1911) who would go on to be a famous proponent of eugenics.[7]

Galton had another son, Theodore Galton (1784–1810), although not much is known about him. His next child was Adele Galton (1784–1869) who married John Kaye Booth, MD, in 1827.[7] Next would come Hubert John Barclay Galton (1789–1864), followed by Ewen Cameron Galton (1791–1800) who died at the age of 9.[1] His last child was John Howard Galton (1794–1862[6]: 53 ) who married Isabelle Strutt. They had a son named Douglas Galton (1822–1899) who served in the royal engineers.[1]

Galton was a lover of animals and even owned many bloodhounds.[1]: 3  He loved birds as well, publishing three book volumes about them.[1]: 3 

Galton owned 300 acres (120 ha) of land at Westhay Moor, Somerset, which he had drained, by constructing Galton's Canal.[8]

The Lunar Society

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Samuel Galton joined the Lunar Society in December of 1785.[4] Galton would join the Lunar Society as an in-person replacement for Erasmus Darwin, who remarried and moved away.[9] He would be one of the fourteen members to be active during the height of the society.[9] One reason for his inclusion into the Society was his love for statistics and data and his tendency to compare datasets.[10]

Galton also had a great love for natural history, one of the subjects taught in Quaker schools.[11] This, compounded with his love for animals, lead him to write many natural history books on them. His first set was The Natural History of Birds: containing a variety of facts ... for the amusement and instruction of children. This was a three-volume set of books intended for the education of children, specifically at first for his children.[11] These were also the first natural history books written with the intent for children to be the primary readers.[11]

Galton would have one more book project intended for younger audiences, and in 1801, The Natural History of Quadrupeds; including all the Linnaean class of mammalia...For the instruction of young persons was published.[11] However, only one complete copy of this work exists in world libraries, specifically the Baldwin Library in the University of Florida.[11]

During his time with the Lunar Society, Galton was known as a careful experimenter and a very original man.[6] Some his notable experiments were that of color mixing, which he would publish on August 1, 1799 in Monthly Magazine.[6] Galton also showed interest in canals, publishing a paper on them called On Canal Levels in 1817.[6] This was for commercial reasons though, as Galton put those before scientific ones more times than not, leading to not many of his contributions being well known or published.[6]

His family, many of which were members of the society, are remembered by the Moonstones in Birmingham and a tower block in the center of that city.

Galton's gun manufacturing

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Galton was condemned by the Quakers for manufacturing guns, as they believed it was against their pacifist values. His defense stated that since Britain was in a constant state of war, it was his duty as a citizen of his country to contribute through its massive industrial complex.[12]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Galton, Francis (1909). Memories of My Life (2nd ed.). E. P. Dutton And Company.
  2. ↑ Inikori, J. E. (1977). "The Import of Firearms into West Africa 1750–1807: A Quantitative Analysis". Journal of African History. 18 (2): 339–368. doi:10.1017/S0021853700027304. S2CID 161693017.
  3. ↑ "Galton, Samuel (Jr)". The Register of British Slave-Traders. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  4. 1 2 Smith, Barbara M D.; Moilliet, J. L. (1967). "James Keir of the Lunar Society". Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London. 22.
  5. ↑ Historic England. "Warley Park (1001301)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 12 March 2015.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Pearson, Karl (1930). The Life, Letters, and Labours of Francis Galton. Cambridge University Press.
  7. 1 2 3 "Ancestry of Francis Galton". Galton.org. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
  8. ↑ Galton, Erasmus (1845). "An Account of Improvement of a Shaking Bog at Meare in Somersetshire". Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. 6. Royal Agricultural Society: 182–187. Retrieved 27 October 2008.
  9. 1 2 Schofield, Robert (1966). "The Lunar Society of Birmingham; A Bicentenary Appraisal". Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London. 21 (2).
  10. ↑ "Francis Galton". Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. 85 (2).
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Allen, Peter. "The Extraordinary Natural History Books of Samuel Galton Jnr". West Midlands History.
  12. ↑ Satia, Priya (2018). Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution. New York : Penguin Press. ISBN 9780735221864.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
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