In 1904, amid heightened fears of urban degeneration, members of the British Association's Anthropometric Committee drafted plans to measure thousands of citizens to establish the state of the national physique. Their proposal was presented to the Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, which agreed that such information would help resolve the degeneration debate. However, a comprehensive anthropometric survey was never enacted, and only schoolchildren were measured in subsequent years. This article examines the state of anthropometric knowledge in the late nineteenth century, and the genesis and rejection of the 1904 survey. It reviews the political, medical and moral opinions which were cited both for and against its implementation, focusing particularly on the perceived reluctance of the working class to be measured. The decision of Campbell-Bannerman's government to institute only school medical inspections suggests that this was an area in which Liberal values ultimately prevented too close an interference with British bodies.
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