Brock Report

In late 19th and early 20th century Britain, supporters of eugenic ideas sought to promote breeding by those they considered "fit" and control the reproduction of those they considered to be "unfit". In the United Kingdom, prominent people from different political parties and backgrounds in arts and science supported eugenic ideas and aimed to have them made into law.^[1] The Eugenics Society saw voluntary sterilisation as a key issue and campaigned hard for it to be introduced into law.^[2][3] Desmond King and Randall Hansen have noted that the effort to promote eugenicist ideas was driven by a privileged minority rather than electoral support.^[4][5]

Disabled people were often targeted as "unfit". The Idiots Act 1886 and the Mental Deficiency Act 1913 defined categories of mental disability and controlled the treatment of mentally disabled people. The Mental Deficiency Act 1913 and a prior 1912 private members' bill called the "Feeble-Minded Control Bill" rejected sterilisation but included segregation, though paragraph (e) of a draft of the bill specifically proposed to confine those "in whose case it is considered desirable in the interests of the community that they should be deprived of the opportunity of procreating children".^[6]

In 1924, the Wood Committee was created to investigate the number of "mental defectives". The committee included eugenicists. It reported in 1929 that deficiency was increasing and defined categories of people.^[4]

In 1931, Archibald Church, a Labour MP, introduced a Sterilisation Bill to the House of Commons.^[7] Carlos Blacker campaigned to support the Bill but it was defeated with 167 votes against and 89 in favour. Those against the bill said it was anti-working class.^[4]

A departmental committee on sterilisation was established soon afterwards.

The departmental committee on sterilisation was chaired by L.G. Brock, who was Chair of the Board of Control for Lunacy and Mental Deficiency.^[8] Its members included Wilfred Trotter, A.F. Tredgold, Ronald A. Fisher, Ruth Darwin, Ralph Henry Crowley, E.O. Lewis, E.W. Adams and Bertrand Dawson.^[9][8][10] F. Chanter was secretary.^[11] Crowley, Tredgold and Lewis had been involved in the earlier Wood Committee.^[4]

Brock was, by his own admission, biased in favour of eugenics from the outset and was given power to select the committee, thus shaping its views.^[4]

The committee heard evidence from 60 witnesses and held 36 meetings to consider this and evidence from reports and statistics.^[9][4][12] Of the 60 witnesses interviewed by the committee, only 3 were opposed in principle to the idea of sterilising people who were mentally disabled.^[7]

A London County Council survey into inheritance of "defect" was an influential piece of evidence considered by the committee.^[13]