Ethel Mary Elderton (1878–1954) was a British biometrician, statistician and eugenics researcher who worked with Francis Galton and Karl Pearson.
Her father, William Alexander Elderton was a private tutor and her mother, Sarah Isabella, née Lapidge was school headmistress.
Her eldest brother was William Palin Elderton, a statistician who worked as an actuary and became head of Equitable Life Assurance Society and also a friend of biostatistician Karl Pearson.
[5][6][2] Subsequently she became the teaching fellow in University College London in 1911 and the assistant professor at Galton Eugenics Laboratory (renamed the Department of Human Genetics and Biometry in 1966) in 1925.
She held a firm belief that before seeking viable solutions to social problems, it was essential to provide solid statistical evidence.
This research gained support from other women in the laboratory, including Amy Barrington, Kathleen T. Ryley, H. Gertrude Jones, Julia Bell, and Eveline Y. Thompson.
Elderton co-authored On the correlation of fertility with social value: a cooperative study, published in the series "Eugenics laboratory memoirs" in 1913 with Amy Barrington, H. Gertrude Jones, Edith Mabel M. de G. Lamotte, Harold Joseph Laski, Karl Pearson.
Based on statistical data from various cities in the UK, the work attempted to demonstrate that individuals with greater social value tend to produce fewer offspring, a trend deemed detrimental to 'a healthier leading nation.'
[17] The following Galton Laboratory publications authored or co-authored by Ethel M. Elderton are available on the UCL Modern Genetics Collection on Internet Archive.