Galton Collection

#77

A compact, critical look at Sir Francis Galton’s restless mind—part inventor, part statistician, and a deeply problematic eugenicist. Cases gather his fingerprint studies, weather instruments, ‘composite’ portrait photography, and the famous quincunx (bean machine) that makes the bell curve visible. Labels today set the science beside its social harms, turning a Victorian showcase into a lesson in ethics. Expect a scholarly, small-room experience; check opening hours/appointments and allow 30–45 minutes.

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Opening Hours

Sunday: 10:00 – 18:00

Tuesday: 10:00 – 18:00

Wednesday: 10:00 – 18:00

Thursday: 10:00 – 20:00

Friday: 10:00 – 18:00

Saturday: 10:00 – 18:00

Admissions

Adult £22.00

Child £11.00

Concession £18.70

Family £59.00

What's not to miss inside?

Fingerprints & Forensics

Proof that no two prints are alike

Galton’s ridge patterns and classification work helped make fingerprints practical for ID worldwide.

Match your thumb’s loops/whorls to the charts—classification becomes a puzzle you can solve by eye.

📍 Main case near entrance

The Quincunx (Galton Board)

Statistics you can watch fall into place

Balls drop through pins to build a binomial curve: chance becomes a shape.

Predict where most balls will land before they fall; then ask what happens if you bias one pin.

📍 Central display

Composite Photography

Early data-visualization—flawed and revealing

By stacking faces to ‘average’ a type, Galton prefigured image processing—and exposed the biases baked into it.

Compare two composites and list what’s lost when individuals are blended.

📍 Photographic panels

Weather & Maps

From ‘anticyclone’ to citizen data

He popularised the term ‘anticyclone’ and gathered public observations to map weather systems.

Trace one storm path across the map; imagine sourcing those datapoints in the 1870s.

📍 Instrument drawer & charts

🤓 Fun Facts

Galton coined ‘anticyclone’ and helped pioneer the synoptic weather map—crowdsourcing data long before the word existed.

He designed the ultrasonic ‘dog whistle’ in the 1870s—an audio experiment turned everyday gadget.

Terms like ‘regression to the mean’ and ‘correlation’ were formalised through his studies—statistical tools still used across science.

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