His father, Robert Marty Gillham, was an advertising executive, and his mother, Elizabeth Enright, was a writer of children's books and the niece of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
A review of this book in Publishers Weekly stated that "[t]his may well prove to be the definitive biography" of Galton.
[4] Similarly, Theodore M. Porter reviewed the book favorably, describing it in the journal Isis as "a sound, readable account that will become, for most, the Galton biography of choice.
"[5] Gillham received a Research Career Development Award from 1972 to 1977[3] and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1984.
Gillham died of a heart attack at his home in Fearrington Village, North Carolina, on March 19, 2018.