A myth has arisen on social media that J. K. Rowling chose the name Robert Galbraith in honour of Robert Galbraith Heath, further, the myth states that she did this because Robert Galbraith Heath is known as “the father of conversion therapy” because of his experiments into electrical stimulation of the brain to “cure” homosexuality. The argument goes that Rowling, or her people, must have searched the name, and so must have known about so famous a man as “the father of conversion therapy”.
The Cuckoo’s Calling was first published in April 2013, so by late 2012 the name Robert Galbraith must have been decided on. If we look at the list of ‘Robert Galbraiths” on Wikipedia before our author joined the list in July 2013 it looks like this:
A photojournalist, a soldier a politician and a judge. Our Dr Heath is listed as “see also” because of course his name is Heath rather than Galbraith. The article on Heath at this time looks like this:
No mention of conversion therapy, but there is a link to a paper he co-authored that would be considered conversion therapy today.
The truth is Dr R. G. Heath or Bob Heath to his friends and colleagues was almost completely unknown before an article published by Robert Colevile in 2016. It was part of a series called “Great Forgotten Stories of Neuroscience” because as Colevile says “because everyone had forgotten it”.
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