Scientists urge Imperial not to cancel college’s founding father

Leading academics reject ‘false’ allegations against Thomas Huxley that led to calls to rename building

IMPERIAL College London must not “disown” Thomas Huxley, one of its founding fathers, eminent scientists have warned as they urge the university not to remove his bust or rename a building named after him.

Several of the university’s own academics have spoken out to defend the renowned 19th-century biologist against accusations of “scientific racism” which they say are “false”.

They are backed by some of the country’s leading scientific figures including Prof Richard Dawkins and Sir Paul Nurse, the Nobel laureate.

They intervened as Imperial College considers the recommendations of an independent history group, which it set up in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, to examine the university’s colonial links.

The history group advised that Huxley’s bust should be removed because he “might now be called racist” and the Huxley Building on campus renamed.

Their report, published in October, explained that while Huxley was an abolitionist, he also wrote an essay which “espouses a racial hierarchy of intelligence, a belief system of ‘scientific racism’ that fed the dangerous and false ideology of eugenics”. It went on to say that this “falls far short of Imperial’s modern values” and as such his bust should be removed from display and the Huxley building renamed.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of 39 scientists, including 17 from Imperial College, are imploring the college not to turn its back on him.

“Huxley was an ardent abolitionist who fought the virulent pro-slavery scientific racism of his day and publicly welcomed the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865,” they say.

“From childhood poverty, Huxley rose on merit to become President of the Royal Society and Privy Counsellor. “Darwin’s Bulldog”, he fought for the theory of evolution, and first demonstrated our evolutionary descent from an ape-like ancestor.”

The letter acknowledges that early in his career he believed in a hierarchy of races but added that “as he aged he became sceptical of racial stereotypes”.

It goes on to note that Huxley “reformed London’s schools, was a principal of a working men’s college, wrote volumes of journalism, gave lectures for working people and opened his classes to women”.

The letter says: “He was instrumental in founding the Royal College of Science, later Imperial College, the very institution that [seeks] to disown him.

“Huxley’s early belief in a hierarchy of races is not ours. But, for his scientific

‘For Huxley’s conviction that all men and women should be judged on their merits, [we] remain in his debt’

accomplishments, his conviction that all men and women should be judged on their merits, civic-mindedness, and the reforming zeal he brought to British science and education, we remain in his debt.

“For these reasons we think his name should stay on Imperial’s walls.”

Prof Armand Leroi, an expert in evolutionary developmental biology at Imperial College, said the recommendations produced by the history group are “frankly shocking”.

“Many members of staff were quite outraged, especially the biologists,” he said. “Huxley was such a champion of egalitarianism, of access to science, of working-class education.”

A spokesman for Imperial College said that its governing body – known as the president’s board – will have an update next month about its proposed course of action.