A spot of Savin: Seeing red

In 1879, Francis Galton became the only person ever to assess the ‘average tint of the complexion of the British upper classes’; and no one could have been better fitted for such an important task. Upper-class himself, he was also hugely intelligent, with an IQ later estimated to be 200 – on the basis of his mastery of Latin grammar at the age of four. He had been trained in both mathematics and medicine.