The Wellcome Trust

Abstract

SIR HENRY WELLCOME, who died on July 25, 1936, at the age of eighty-two years, was known as the creator of a great manufactiiring business and also for the active interest he took in archaeological and geographical exploration, the social welfare of native races and the promotion of fundamental research in sciences on which the progress of medicine depends. Beginning so long ago as 1894, he founded in that year the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories, and two years later a corresponding centre for chemical research. In 1899, he established the Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories at Khartoum, where the late Sir Andrew Balfour worked as director for twelve years, doing notable work on the control of malaria and the investigation of other tropical diseases. In 1913 the Wellcome Bureau of Scientific Research was brought into being to control the various research laboratories already operating, and then followed the Historical Medical Museum, the Museum of Medical Science and the Entomological Field Laboratory. All these institutions, with the exception of the physiological and entomological laboratories, are now housed in the magnificent Wellcome Research Institution in Euston Road, London. This was Sir Henry's crowning gift; the corner-stone was laid in 1931 by the late Lord Moynihan, who said that the ceremony might well be regarded as referring to the corner-stone of a long life's work.