Initially, Galton he planned to become a doctor. He studied medicine at Birmingham General Hospital and King’s College London in the late 1830s. But he abandoned this idea and studied mathematics at Cambridge University. After the death of his father in 1844, he received a substantial inheritance that allowed him to investigate any subject that aroused his curiosity. And he soon decided that it was time to explore more distant shores.
In the mid-1840s, Galton made his first trip to the Middle East and Africa. He went to Egypt and traveled down the Nile River to Sudan, among other destinations in the area. His travels inspired him to embark on an exploration of southern Africa. In 1850 he joined the Royal Geographical Society and soon set out on his journey, with the approval of the society. He initially planned to travel from an area known as Damaraland to Lake Ngami, but ended up traveling through a section of the southwest called Ovamboland.
The maps of Galton, his observations and descriptions of the native peoples of these regions brought him great recognition, including a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society. He published a book about his exploration, titled Tropical South Africa (1853). Two years later, he offered his advice to other explorers in The Art of Travel: O, Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild countries (1855).
Married in 1853 to Louisa Jane Butler, Galton ended his explorations to pursue other scientific pursuits. He became interested in the climate and created the first weather map, showing different climatic conditions in a geographic area. In 1863, he published a book on the subject, called Meteorology, or Methods of Mapping the Weather.
Much influenced by The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1859), Galton he developed his own theories about inherited traits. He studied identical twins and worked on the first test of intelligence in his exploration of the roles of “nature and nurture”, a phrase created by Galton, on human attributes. According to some sources, Galton he also coined the term “eugenics,” a controversial field of study about selective breeding in humans to produce preferred traits.
Galton He spent much of his life studying heredity and eugenics, and later thought that a person’s fingerprints could be part of the human genetic puzzle. He thought that these prints could provide information about the differences between people, from race to moral character and intelligence. While he never made any discoveries in this area, Galton established a fingerprint classification system that is still in use today.
In 1908, Galton he published his autobiography and received knighthood from King Edward the following year. He died on January 17, 1911, in Haslemere, England, at the age of 88. In his will, he donated funds for a professorship in eugenics at University College London.