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King Robert the Bruce, 1274-1329, his Skull and Portraiture.

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First and only separate edition, ‘issued to Subscribers only’ (this copy unnumbered). The British biostatician and eugenicist Pearson (1857-1936) studied mathematics, physics, and Darwinism at the universities of Cambridge, Heidelberg, and Berlin, and (following a brief but abortive training in law) was appointed Goldsmid Professor of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics at University College, London in 1884, relinquishing the post in 1911 to take up the position of first Galton Professor of Eugenics at UCL, ‘a chair that had been offered first to Pearson in keeping with Galton’s expressed wish’ (DSB X, p. 447), which he held until his retirement in 1933. In tandem with the chair, Pearson was Director of the Eugenics Record Office (which he renamed the Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics), and he established its international pre-eminence as a centre for biostatistical and eugenics research. Pearson was also the founding and principal editor of Biometrika, the pioneering eugenics journal, and ‘under his guidance it became the world’s leading medium of publication of papers on, and mathematical tables relating to, statistical theory and practice’ (op. cit, X, p. 464). This offprint from Biometrika reprints an article by Pearson on the skull of Robert the Bruce, which had been disinterred in 1819, when a cast had been made. Pearson provides a full study of the skull based on the cast, identifying possible medical conditions suggested by it and also aspects of the monarch’s character, before then comparing the skull’s physiognomy with that of early medallic and pictorial representations of Robert the Bruce.

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