Eugenics (1910s - 1950s)

Eugenicists had two main concerns: increasingly visible poverty, illness and crime that was a consequence of industrialisation and urbanisation; and a falling birthrate among the middle classes offset by rising birthrates among the poor of all nations but especially 'non-white' races.

Eugenicists held three beliefs that influenced their practices and the policies they tried to implement in WA:

• Poverty, crime and 'mental deficiency' were linked
• Healthy living and the encouragement of good breeding could restore the social balance
• The 'unfit' should be stopped from breeding through 'locating, then registering, and finally segregating or sterilising them' (Gillgren, p.65).

From 1910, children with intellectual disabilities who lived at home were given remedial education at the public Perth Infants' School but this approach lapsed as the eugenics movement took hold. In 1911, Dr WP Birmingham who was a senior member of the Board of Visitors of the Claremont Hospital for the Insane, reported on his review of facilities for people with intellectual disabilities in England, Germany and the United States of America. Birmingham began his report by defining and classifying 'mental deficiency' as congenital or acquired. Congenital defectives had three sub-groups: idiot, imbecile and feeble-minded. Birmingham stated that mental deficiency was incurable and had a genetic basis.

Consistent with eugenicist beliefs, Birmingham reported that mental defectives were susceptible to heightened sexuality and promiscuity (particularly females), to crime, and were generally a threat to white, civilised society. These people could, however, be productively put to work if they were kept in a controlled and segregated environment. Birmingham has been considered quite moderate is his eugenicist views because he opposed sterilisation.

Birmingham's report had no immediate impact on practices in WA, possibly because he also advocated for government investment in cottage homes, industrial training and workshops. The Inspector of Public Charities' report in 1913 confirmed that children with intellectual disabilities were indeed languishing in homes for the aged and insane. The Inspector found it regrettable but wrote that these children were 'unfitted for unrestricted liberty' and there was a need to avoid their multiplication. After World War One, though, the 'stagnant pool of Western Australian lunacy reform' was stirred (Gillgren, p.67). The 1919 Angwin Select Committee on the Claremont Hospital for the Insane recommended establishing a separate institution and Board of Commissioners for mental defectives. In November 1920, The West Australian newspaper urged the protection and segregation of mentally defective children before they, too, grew to neglected adulthood and 'spread the disease' through uncontrolled breeding.

The Royal Commission in Lunacy in 1922 also concentrated on segregation for 'the safety of the public and the well-being of the race' (Gillgren, p.68). The eugenicists in Perth had their best chance of success with the Mental Deficiency Bill in 1929. This sought to statutorily segregate people with intellectual disabilities into custodial institutions. A Select Committee was set up to review the Bill, which lapsed due to a lack of support for sterilisation and the cost of the proposed facilities and programs. However, the legacy of the Bill was a widespread belief in the value of segregating children with intellectual disabilities from the community, even if it was too costly to try and segregate them from the insane.

Pockets of eugenicists survived World War II. In September 1950, The West Australian newspaper asked Perth religious and civic leaders to respond to the Anglican Bishop of Birmingham Dr Barne's claim that 'degenerate human stock was increasing too rapidly'. Speaking to the British Society for the Advancement of Science, Bishop Barnes advocated 'mercy killing' of 'children born horribly defective or deformed' and the sterilisation of mental defects, saying that while sterilisation was only partially effective in preventing further births, 'half a loaf was better than no bread'. Bishop Barnes' views were not widely supported by those of Perth's religious and social welfare leaders who were asked to comment by The West Australian. The Anglican Archbishop of Perth Dr Moline said that the 'unfortunate accident by which Dr. Barnes is a bishop does not give any authority to his views' which did not represent the views of the Anglican Church. A spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archbishop Dr Prendiville said the methods advocated by the Bishop were 'condemned by the divine and natural law'. Congregational Church minister Rev. Bryant was not prepared to make a 'snap judgement' on the issue of sterilisation. The president of the Women's Service Guild, Mrs D Bulford, didn't wish to generalize, saying that each case 'must be considered on its individual merits and be a matter for individual responsibility and conscience'. The president of the National Council of Women, Mrs JB Carmody, said that 'no Christian could accept' views on sterilisation which coincided 'with those of the late lamented Hitler…the application of these practices would send us back to a state of barbarism'. Finally, the newspaper reported that the president of the WA branch of the British Medical Association, Dr AB Wilson, 'said that he felt the subject was one requiring individual interpretation according to man's outlook on divinity, but he declined to comment further'.

The Daily News also published responses to Bishop Barnes' statements. Under the heading 'Four out of five Perth people agree with Bishop Barnes', the article aired the views of five Perth citizens. As a small snapshot of the attitudes towards intellectual disability in Perth in the 1950s, it would seem that eugenicist principles lived on in some people's hearts and minds. It was certainly the case that children with disabilities in Western Australia continued to be hidden away from the public gaze in the same institutions that had been identified as inadequate before World War One.