Taken from the Greek word eugenes meaning "good in stock", the term "eugenics" was coined in 1883 by Francis Galton (1822-1911). Today it is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as 'Pertaining to or adapted to the production of fine offspring, esp. in the human race." We will attempt to explain what eugenics was in the context of its time and how it should be applied to human beings. We will also attempt to identify who its proponents were and the many different reasons why the doctrine of eugenics appealed to them. The problem of what to do with the urban poor had been an ongoing concern for the middle classes since the mid-19th century Concerns about crime, vice and poverty widened from the 1870s onwards and in the 1880s the East End. of London represented a corruption that threatened the continued success of the British race. The harsh winter of 1885-6 led the poor and unemployed to demonstrate against their conditions in Trafalgar Square tension was high and the affluent middle classes of the West End lived in real fear that the "mob" would overwhelm them Reproducing at a rapid rate, there was the threat that they would overtake the stronger members of society. It was necessary to find a solution to solve the problem of the poor masses who threatened to invade the middle class. Galton, a polymath, was a cousin of Charles Darwin, whose work On the Origin of Species led Galton to consider whether humans could be selectively bred in the same way as farmyard animals. To attribute the laws of animal breeding to man, Galton looked for evidence that desirable characteristics were hereditary. Studying the most eminent and successful men of his time, he discovered that many were related and concluded that ... middle of paper ... eugenics doctrine was malleable and could be distorted to fit a variety of social situations. activists. For Fabian socialists, eugenics offered the possibility of a bureaucratic utopia. The middle classes could use the eugenics movement to preserve their social status and rid society of remnants. For philanthropists, poverty and disease of the poor could be eliminated by the practice of eugenics, and for women's rights activists, the debate over eugenics gave them the first opportunity to have a say in their reproductive rights and yes could argue that the movement was used by women to advance their position and gain further rights that could never have been achieved through protest alone. Some historians believe that the eugenics argument was used within feminism in an attempt to hijack and reshape the dominant socio-scientific discourse for subversive ends..