Henry Wellcome
Encyclopedia
Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome (August 21, 1853 – July 25, 1936) FRS
was an American-British pharmaceutical entrepreneur. He founded the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Company with his colleague Silas Burroughs, which is one of the four large companies that merged to form GlaxoSmithKline
. In addition, he left a large amount of capital for charitable work in his will, which was used to form the Wellcome Trust
, one of the world's largest medical charities. He was a keen collector of medical artifacts.
to Rev. S. C. Wellcome, an itinerant missionary who travelled and preached in a covered wagon, and Mary Curtis Wellcome. He had an early interest in medicine, particularly marketing. His first product, at the age of 16, was invisible ink (in fact just lemon juice) which he advertised in the Garden City Herald. He was brought up with a strict religious upbringing, particularly with respect to the temperance movement
. His father was a strong member of the Second Adventist
Church. He was a freemason
.
. They introduced the selling of medicine in tablet
form to England under the 1884 trademark
"Tabloid"; previously medicines were sold mostly as powders or liquids. They also introduced direct marketing
to doctors, giving them free samples. In 1895, Silas Burroughs died, aged 48, leaving the company in the hands of his partner. The company flourished and Henry Wellcome set up several research laboratories linked to the drug company.
In 1901, Henry Wellcome married Gwendoline Maud Syrie Barnardo
, a daughter of orphanage founder Thomas John Barnardo
. They had one child, Henry Mounteney Wellcome, born 1903, who was sent to foster parents at the age of about three. He was considered to be sickly at the time, and his parents were spending much time traveling. The marriage was not happy, and in 1909 they separated. After that Syrie had several affairs, including with the department store magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge
and William Somerset Maugham with whom she had a child (Mary Elizabeth
) and later married. Wellcome sued for divorce in 1915, naming Maugham as co-respondent. This attracted large amounts of publicity that he had previously tried to avoid. Syrie never contested Henry's custody of their child.
In 1910, Wellcome became a British subject and was knighted
in 1932. In 1924, Wellcome consolidated all his commercial and non-commercial activities in one holding company, The Wellcome Foundation Ltd. In 1932, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England
. He died of pneumonia
in The London Clinic
in 1936, aged 82, after an operation, and on his death the Wellcome Trust
was established.
is now one of the world's largest private biomedical charities.
The first biography of Wellcome was commissioned by the Wellcome Trust
in 1939, by A.W. Haggis, a member of staff at the Historical Medicine Museum Wellcome had established. However, the Trustees were dissatisfied with the final draft of 1942, and the biography was never published (the drafts are, however, freely available for consultation at the Wellcome Library).
A biography of Henry Wellcome was written by Robert Rhodes James
and published in 1994. In 2009, An Infinity of Things: How Sir Henry Wellcome Collected the World, written by Frances Larson, was published by Oxford University Press. It is the first biography of Wellcome to have been published since both his personal and business papers were catalogued.
, providing funding for focus areas such as biomedical science
, Technology transfer
, Public engagement
and Bioethics
. Grants and fellowships are available to recipients with goals of translating research into usable health products. The trust currently spends over $600 million a year in medical research training.
Newly started programs by the Wellcome Trust include the creation of research training programs for physicians wishing to pursue careers in academic medicine, which the trust started in October 2010. Also currently, the foundation supports clinicians' research to develop treatments for obesity using natural appetite suppression.
, currently on display at the Wellcome Collection
. By the time of his death there were 125,000 medical objects in the collection, of over one million total. Most of the non-medical objects were dispersed after his death. He was also a keen archaeologist, in particular digging for many years at Jebel Moya, Sudan
, hiring 4000 people to excavate. He was one of the first investigators to use kite aerial photography
on an archaeological site, with surviving images available in the Wellcome Library
.
Parts of his collection have been exhibited in the Science Museum (London)
since 1976, and in the Wellcome Collection
as the exhibit "Medicine Man" since 2007. His collection of books, paintings, drawings, photographs and other media are available for viewing at the Wellcome Library
. In 2003, the Quay Brothers directed a short animated film in tribute to the collection entitled The Phantom Museum.
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
was an American-British pharmaceutical entrepreneur. He founded the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Company with his colleague Silas Burroughs, which is one of the four large companies that merged to form GlaxoSmithKline
GlaxoSmithKline
GlaxoSmithKline plc is a global pharmaceutical, biologics, vaccines and consumer healthcare company headquartered in London, United Kingdom...
. In addition, he left a large amount of capital for charitable work in his will, which was used to form the Wellcome Trust
Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust was established in 1936 as an independent charity funding research to improve human and animal health. With an endowment of around £13.9 billion, it is the United Kingdom's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research...
, one of the world's largest medical charities. He was a keen collector of medical artifacts.
Biography
Henry Solomon Wellcome was born in a frontier log cabin in Almond, WisconsinAlmond, Wisconsin
Almond is a village in Portage County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 459 in the 2000 census.-History:Incorporated in 1905, the town originated when Jacob Meyers from Mohawk Valley, New York, started a stagecoach and freight route between Berlin and Stevens Point...
to Rev. S. C. Wellcome, an itinerant missionary who travelled and preached in a covered wagon, and Mary Curtis Wellcome. He had an early interest in medicine, particularly marketing. His first product, at the age of 16, was invisible ink (in fact just lemon juice) which he advertised in the Garden City Herald. He was brought up with a strict religious upbringing, particularly with respect to the temperance movement
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
. His father was a strong member of the Second Adventist
Adventist
Adventism is a Christian movement which began in the 19th century, in the context of the Second Great Awakening revival in the United States. The name refers to belief in the imminent Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It was started by William Miller, whose followers became known as Millerites...
Church. He was a freemason
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
.
Pharmaceutical executive
In 1880, Henry Wellcome established a pharmaceutical company, Burroughs Wellcome & Company, with his colleague Silas Mainville BurroughsSilas Mainville Burroughs (pharmacist)
Silas Mainville Burroughs, Jr. was an American pharmaceutical businessman.-Biography:Born in Medina, New York, he was the son of Silas Mainville Burroughs, Sr., his mother died when he was five and his father when he was 13...
. They introduced the selling of medicine in tablet
Tablet
A tablet is a pharmaceutical dosage form. It comprises a mixture of active substances and excipients, usually in powder form, pressed or compacted from a powder into a solid dose...
form to England under the 1884 trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
"Tabloid"; previously medicines were sold mostly as powders or liquids. They also introduced direct marketing
Direct marketing
Direct marketing is a channel-agnostic form of advertising that allows businesses and nonprofits to communicate straight to the customer, with advertising techniques such as mobile messaging, email, interactive consumer websites, online display ads, fliers, catalog distribution, promotional...
to doctors, giving them free samples. In 1895, Silas Burroughs died, aged 48, leaving the company in the hands of his partner. The company flourished and Henry Wellcome set up several research laboratories linked to the drug company.
In 1901, Henry Wellcome married Gwendoline Maud Syrie Barnardo
Gwendoline Maud Syrie Barnardo
Syrie Maugham was a leading British interior decorator of the 1920s and 1930s and best-known for popularizing rooms decorated entirely in shades of white.-Birth:...
, a daughter of orphanage founder Thomas John Barnardo
Thomas John Barnardo
Thomas John Barnardo was a philanthropist and founder and director of homes for poor children, born in Dublin. From the foundation of the first Barnardo's home in 1870 to the date of Barnardo’s death, nearly 100,000 children had been rescued, trained and given a better life.- Early life :Barnardo...
. They had one child, Henry Mounteney Wellcome, born 1903, who was sent to foster parents at the age of about three. He was considered to be sickly at the time, and his parents were spending much time traveling. The marriage was not happy, and in 1909 they separated. After that Syrie had several affairs, including with the department store magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge
Harry Gordon Selfridge
Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sr. was an American-born retail magnate, who founded the British department store Selfridges.-Early years:...
and William Somerset Maugham with whom she had a child (Mary Elizabeth
Mary Elizabeth Maugham
Mary Elizabeth Maugham Paravicini Hope, Baroness Glendevon was the only child of English playwright, novelist, and short story writer W. Somerset Maugham and his then mistress, Syrie Wellcome...
) and later married. Wellcome sued for divorce in 1915, naming Maugham as co-respondent. This attracted large amounts of publicity that he had previously tried to avoid. Syrie never contested Henry's custody of their child.
In 1910, Wellcome became a British subject and was knighted
Knight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
in 1932. In 1924, Wellcome consolidated all his commercial and non-commercial activities in one holding company, The Wellcome Foundation Ltd. In 1932, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England
Royal College of Surgeons of England
The Royal College of Surgeons of England is an independent professional body and registered charity committed to promoting and advancing the highest standards of surgical care for patients, regulating surgery, including dentistry, in England and Wales...
. He died of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
in The London Clinic
The London Clinic
The London Clinic is a private healthcare organisation based in central London. Although it maintains several consulting rooms in the traditional doctors' street of Harley Street, the main hospital site is on the corner of Devonshire Place and the Marylebone Road...
in 1936, aged 82, after an operation, and on his death the Wellcome Trust
Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust was established in 1936 as an independent charity funding research to improve human and animal health. With an endowment of around £13.9 billion, it is the United Kingdom's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research...
was established.
Legacy
In his will, Henry Wellcome vested the entire share capital of his company in individual Trustees, who were charged with spending the income to further human and animal health. The Wellcome TrustWellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust was established in 1936 as an independent charity funding research to improve human and animal health. With an endowment of around £13.9 billion, it is the United Kingdom's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research...
is now one of the world's largest private biomedical charities.
The first biography of Wellcome was commissioned by the Wellcome Trust
Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust was established in 1936 as an independent charity funding research to improve human and animal health. With an endowment of around £13.9 billion, it is the United Kingdom's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research...
in 1939, by A.W. Haggis, a member of staff at the Historical Medicine Museum Wellcome had established. However, the Trustees were dissatisfied with the final draft of 1942, and the biography was never published (the drafts are, however, freely available for consultation at the Wellcome Library).
A biography of Henry Wellcome was written by Robert Rhodes James
Robert Rhodes James
Sir Robert Vidal Rhodes James was a British historian and Conservative Member of Parliament. He was born in India and began his education in private schools there, returning to England to attend Sedbergh School and then Worcester College, Oxford.He wrote his first book, a much-acclaimed biography...
and published in 1994. In 2009, An Infinity of Things: How Sir Henry Wellcome Collected the World, written by Frances Larson, was published by Oxford University Press. It is the first biography of Wellcome to have been published since both his personal and business papers were catalogued.
The Wellcome Trust
After his death, Wellcome's will was able to contribute the creation of a global foundation dedicated to improving human and animal health, called the Wellcome Trust. Over the course of the last 70 years, Wellcome's organization has become the largest charity in the UKUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, providing funding for focus areas such as biomedical science
Biomedical scientist
A biomedical scientist is a scientist trained in biology, particularly in the context of medicine...
, Technology transfer
Technology transfer
Technology Transfer, also called Transfer of Technology and Technology Commercialisation, is the process of skill transferring, knowledge, technologies, methods of manufacturing, samples of manufacturing and facilities among governments or universities and other institutions to ensure that...
, Public engagement
Public engagement
Public engagement is a term that has recently been used, particularly in the UK, to describe "the involvement of specialists listening to, developing their understanding of, and interacting with, non-specialists" .-Origins:The tradition of a decision-making body getting inputs from those with less...
and Bioethics
Bioethics
Bioethics is the study of controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology and medicine. Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, and philosophy....
. Grants and fellowships are available to recipients with goals of translating research into usable health products. The trust currently spends over $600 million a year in medical research training.
Newly started programs by the Wellcome Trust include the creation of research training programs for physicians wishing to pursue careers in academic medicine, which the trust started in October 2010. Also currently, the foundation supports clinicians' research to develop treatments for obesity using natural appetite suppression.
Collection
Wellcome had a passion for collecting medically related artefacts, aiming to create a Museum of Man. He bought very widely anything related to medicine, including Napoleon's toothbrushToothbrush
The toothbrush is an oral hygiene instrument used to clean the teeth and gums that consists of a head of tightly clustered bristles mounted on a handle, which facilitates the cleansing of hard-to-reach areas of the mouth. Toothpaste, which often contains fluoride, is commonly used in conjunction...
, currently on display at the Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Collection
The Wellcome Collection is a museum at 183 Euston Road, London, displaying an unusual mixture of medical artifacts and original artworks exploring 'ideas about the connections between medicine, life and art'. The Collection comprises three public exhibition spaces, an auditorium, events space, cafe...
. By the time of his death there were 125,000 medical objects in the collection, of over one million total. Most of the non-medical objects were dispersed after his death. He was also a keen archaeologist, in particular digging for many years at Jebel Moya, Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
, hiring 4000 people to excavate. He was one of the first investigators to use kite aerial photography
Kite aerial photography
Kite aerial photography is a hobby and a type of photography. A camera is lifted using a kite and is triggered either remotely or automatically to take aerial photographs. The camera rigs can range from the extremely simple, consisting of a trigger mechanism with a disposable camera, to complex...
on an archaeological site, with surviving images available in the Wellcome Library
Wellcome Library
The Wellcome Library is founded on the collection formed by Sir Henry Wellcome , whose personal wealth allowed him to create one of the most ambitious collections of the 20th century. Henry Wellcome's interest was the history of medicine in a broad sense and included subjects like alchemy or...
.
Parts of his collection have been exhibited in the Science Museum (London)
Science Museum (London)
The Science Museum is one of the three major museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is part of the National Museum of Science and Industry. The museum is a major London tourist attraction....
since 1976, and in the Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Collection
The Wellcome Collection is a museum at 183 Euston Road, London, displaying an unusual mixture of medical artifacts and original artworks exploring 'ideas about the connections between medicine, life and art'. The Collection comprises three public exhibition spaces, an auditorium, events space, cafe...
as the exhibit "Medicine Man" since 2007. His collection of books, paintings, drawings, photographs and other media are available for viewing at the Wellcome Library
Wellcome Library
The Wellcome Library is founded on the collection formed by Sir Henry Wellcome , whose personal wealth allowed him to create one of the most ambitious collections of the 20th century. Henry Wellcome's interest was the history of medicine in a broad sense and included subjects like alchemy or...
. In 2003, the Quay Brothers directed a short animated film in tribute to the collection entitled The Phantom Museum.
Works
- Alte cymrische Heilkunde : ein Abdruck des historischen Andenkens. Burroughs Wellcome, London digital
- The Story of Metlakahtla. London; New York: Saxon, 1887.