{{Short description|British psychiatrist (1883–1972)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Ruth Darwin | birth_date = 20 August 1883 | death_date = 15 October 1972 | known_for = Eugenics activism | boards = Board of Control for Lunacy and Mental Deficiency | spouse = {{marriage|William Rees-Thomas|1948}} | parents = Sir Horace Darwin<br/>The Hon. Ida Farrer | family = Darwin–Wedgwood family | awards = CBE (1938) }} {{Eugenics sidebar}}
'''Ruth Frances Darwin''' CBE (20 August 1883 – 15 October 1972)<ref name="Burke's Landed Gentry"/> was Commissioner of the Board of Control for Lunacy and Mental Deficiency<ref name="Who's Who" /> and an advocate of eugenics.
== Career == Darwin was appointed to the Board of Control, as an unpaid member, in 1921, replacing Ellen Pinsent.<ref name="Appointment">''The Times'', Tuesday, 19 April 1921; pg. 4; Issue 42698; col F</ref> She retired from the Board of Control in 1949.<ref name="Retirement" />
In 1929, with money from the estate of her father who had died in 1928, she founded the Darwin Trust<ref>Not to be confused with the modern-day Charles Darwin Trust</ref> to foster research into "mental defect, disease or disorder".<ref name="Kevles1985" />
In 1932 she was appointed to the Brock Committee (a Parliamentary committee chaired by Sir Laurence Brock)<ref name="Brock Committee"/> that produced the Brock Report that called for the forced sterilisation of "mental defectives".
She was appointed a CBE in 1938.<ref name="CBE" />
== Family connections == Darwin was the middle child and elder daughter of Sir Horace Darwin, through whom she was a granddaughter of the naturalist Charles Darwin (she was born a year after Charles's death in 1882). Her mother, The Hon. Ida Farrer (1854–1946), was the daughter of Thomas Farrer, 1st Baron Farrer. Her younger sister Nora, later became Lady Barlow after marrying Sir Alan Barlow, 2nd Baronet, while her elder brother Erasmus was killed during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915.<ref name="Erasmus Darwin CWGC" />
In 1948, she married the Welsh psychiatrist William Rees-Thomas, who was a colleague of hers on the Board of Control.<ref name="Rees-Thomas Who's Who" /> She died in 1972, predeceasing her husband.<ref name="Death" />
== References ==
<references> <ref name="Brock Committee">House Of Commons ''The Times'' Friday, 10 June 1932; pg. 7; Issue 46156; col B</ref>
<ref name="Burke's Landed Gentry">Burke's Landed Gentry: Darwin, formerly of Downe http://www.burkespeerage.com/FamilyHomepage.aspx?FID=3423</ref> <ref name=CBE>[http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/34518/supplements/3697 Issue 34518] ''The London Gazette''</ref> <ref name=Death>Obituary: Mrs W. Rees-Thomas, ''The Times'', Monday, 16 October 1972; pg. 14; Issue 58606; col F</ref> <ref name="Erasmus Darwin CWGC">{{CWGC|id=1609108|name=Darwin, Erasmus|access-date=18 November 2024}}</ref> <ref name="Kevles1985">Daniel J. Kevles "In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity"</ref> <ref name="Who's Who">‘DARWIN, Ruth Frances’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007 [http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U153720, accessed 27 Dec 2012]</ref> <ref name="Rees-Thomas Who's Who">‘REES-THOMAS, William’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007 [http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U158859, accessed 27 Dec 2012]</ref> <ref name="Retirement">''The Times'', Thursday, 15 September 1949; pg. 7; Issue 51487; col D</ref>
</references>
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Darwin, Ruth}} Category:1883 births Category:1972 deaths Category:20th-century British medical doctors Category:20th-century British women medical doctors Category:British psychiatrists Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:British women psychiatrists Category:British eugenicists Category:British activists Category:British women activists Ruth