Lionel Penrose, F.R.S. (1898–1972) and eugenics: Part one

Abstract

Lionel Penrose was born in London. His father, James Doyle Penrose a portrait painter, and his mother, Elizabeth Josephine (née Peckover) Penrose, were both members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) as their ancestors had been for 200 years. As Dr Harry Harris F.R.S., a colleague and author of Penrose’s memoir in Biographical Memoirs of the Royal Society , observes, Lionel and his three brothers ‘were brought up strictly according to the religious principles of the Society of friends … in later life though he remained a member of the Society of Friends he was not particularly zealous about religious meetings. However, his Quaker upbringing no doubt played an important part in determining his extreme dislike of show and pretensiousness and his pacifist outlook. Also he never acquired a taste for fiction’.