Founded 1924, bringing together all of Wellcome's business and research interests into a single limited company. Henry Wellcome was the Governing Director of the Foundation but his duties were largely delegated to the Deputy Governing Director, G.E. Pearson, General Manager of Burroughs Wellcome & Co. since 1905.

Symons p.17.

Wellcome Museum of Medical Science

=======

description: formerly Wellcome Museum of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene

Wellcome Museum of Medical Science (WMMS)

Established 1914 as Wellcome Museum of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene, and part of the Wellcome Bureau of Scientific Research [WBSR].

The initiative for establishing the Museum lay with Balfour. The Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories in Khartoum [WTRL] included a museum formed of material which he had collected as a by-product of its work and he had also undertaken medical exhibitions as Dresden and Ghent dealing with selected tropical diseases. In 1913 when Balfour returned to London to direct the Wellcome Bureau of Scientific Research [WBSR], he proposed the establishment of a graphic Museum of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. In 1914 a Museum was established at 10 Henrietta Street, London reporting to the WBSR for the purposes of administration and finance.

The nucleus of the exhibits came from the Dresden and Ghent exhibitions, supplemented by a variety of material relating to tropical medicine collected by Balfour and his staff during their overseas travels, largely zoological material. In 1919 the Museum moved to 8 Vere Street, opposite the building which housed the WBSR and in January that year, Dr G. Buchanan, who had served in the laboratories in Khartoum was appointed first full-time Curator. He was succeeded in June by Dr S.H. Daukes who had organised the visual teaching at the Leeds School of Army Hygiene. The Museum was chiefly concerned with the prophylactics of tropical diseases, with special reference to their cause, transmission and methods of prevention.

In 1920 the Museum and Bureau moved to premises on the corner of Euston Road and Gordon Street and an active period of expansion, re-arrangement and labelling took place. In 1922 classes of students, consisting chiefly of missionaries and educationalists, were given formal demonstrations on tropical medicine and hygiene. However, in 1923 the establishment of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, which had a museum of its own meant a change of direction and the Wellcome museum began to embrace general medicine as well and in [1924 or] 1926 it was re-named the Wellcome Museum of Medical Science. In 1926 it transferred to 28 Endsleigh Gardens (later Endsleigh Court, 33 Gordon Street), moving again in 1932 to the ground floor of the Wellcome Building at 183 Euston Road.

In the 1930s the WMMS became a centre for postgraduate study of tropical diseases and for undergraduate teaching of medicine in general. It was closed from 1939-1946, with specimens being put into storage in North London to escape the Blitz. When it re-opened after the war the museum was reduced in size and specialised in the teaching of tropical medicine, becoming a centre for postgraduate study under a new Director, Dr C.J. Hackett. It activities dovetailed with the Wellcome Laboratories of Tropical Medicine which were established at this time as the successors to the former Bureau of Scientific Research. In the 1950s its new emphasis was not on tropical medicine but on the practice of medicine in the tropics.

In 1983 the Museum was transferred from the Company to the Wellcome Trust, which had already taken over the Wellcome Institute.

In 1985 the functions were taken over by the Wellcome Tropical Institute [WTI], which in turn was succeeded by the Wellcome Tropical Resource c.1988. The museum was closed in 1989.

Curators/Directors

See Adrian Steel and Lesley A. Hall, “Sir Henry Wellcome’s Archival Legacy and the Contemporary Historian,” Contemporary British History 17, no. 3 (2003): 95–111, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13619460308565453.

Established 1913 under the direction of Dr Balfour, to promote 'the study and investigation of medical problems, more particularly in their relation to tropical medicine and hygiene', encompassing the various Wellcome research laboratories and museums. Reconstructed and enlarged in 1926.

Directors

• Sir Andrew Balfour, 1913 - 1923

• Dr Stevenson, Acting Director 1915 - 1916

• Dr C.M. Wenyon, 1923 -

Symons 1993, page 12.

Building on Euston Road inaugurated in 1931 as a headquarters for all the Wellcome research laboratories and museums:

• Wellcome Bureau of Scientific Research (WBSR)

• Wellcome Entomological Field Laboratories

• Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories (WPRL) - located at Langley Court in Beckenham

• Wellcome Chemical Research Laboratories (WCRL)

• Wellcome Museum of Medical Science (WMMS)

• Wellcome Historical Medical Museum (WHMM)

From 1941 the building also housed the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (WHML).

From 1947 tp 1989 the building contained the head offices of the Wellcome Foundation Ltd.

Building renamed the 'Wellcome Building' in 1955.

Headquarters of the Wellcome Trust from 1992.

Historical Medical Exhibition (HME)

Wellcome Historical Medical Museum

After Wellcome consolidated his interests in one company in 1924, the museum became part of Wellcome Foundation.

The museum returned to the Wellcome Building on Euston Road in 1954 but with much reduced space (half a floor instead of three whole floors), and so the policy of temporary, topical exhibitions continued. The lack of space also meant the staff gave more time to academic research. The Museum gained a little more space in 1959, and installed five historical pharmacies in the upper ground floor entrance hall.

Pharmaceutical company established by two American pharmacists, Henry S. Wellcome and Silas Mainville Burroughs in 1880. Wellcome became sole proprietor after Burroughs's death in 1895.

London headquarters was Snow Hill Buildings, Snow Hill EC1. The company headquarters were bombed in 1941.

Initially they acted as agents for several American companies - Burroughs was closely associated with Wyeths; Wellcome with McKesson & Robbins. They specialised in the new 'compressed medicines' or tablets. In 1883, Burroughs Wellcome started manufacturing their own products. The main factory was established in Dartford, Kent in 1889. By 1900 the product range included an extensive 'Tabloid' range of medicines as well as 'Kepler' Cod Liver Oil & Malt; Hazeline Snow; Saccharin; atomisers for sprays; artificial ear drums; tea in 'Tabloid' form, and an assorted range of tonics and laxatives, as well as a growing selection of medicine chests.

In 1924, Wellcome consolidated all his separate enterprises under one private company, 'The Wellcome Foundation Ltd.'. Over time, Burroughs Wellcome came to represent the distribution arm of this network.

Overseas offices & sites:

• 1886: B&W Australia. By 1901, the main offices were at 108 Pitt Street, Sydney, plus depots across the country.

• 1902: B&W South Africa

• 1905: B&W Office & Depot, 14 Via Carlo Alberto, Milan (first associated house in Europe); later (1908-c1948) operated from Via Legnano, Milan

• 1906: B&W Canada in Montreal

• c1906: B&W USA

• 1906: B&W China in Shanghai

• 1910: B&W Argentina

• 1912: B&W India at Cook's Building, Hornby Road, Bombay

• 1946: House set up in Cairo, Egypt, for Middle East markets

• 1946: Dublin House opened for the Republic of Ireland market

Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratories (WTRL)

Established at Gordon Memorial College, Khartoum, Sudan in 1903. First director, Andrew Balfour.

See Symons 1993, p8

Established c.1896 as a laboratory under the directorship of Dr Frederick Belding Power. Theoretically independent of Burroughs Wellcome & Company (BW & Co.) but in practice administered through their head office and carried out some work on company products.

See Symons 1993, page 3.

Wellcome Institute of/for the History of Medicine (WIHM)

successor institution to Wellcome Historical Medical Museum and Wellcome Historical Medical Library

1968 - Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine 1973 - Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine (title change) 1976 - creation of joint Academic Unit with UCL WIHM still in existence in 1993, albeit fragmented across different buildings: Academic Unit, Bentley House, ...

see Symons 1993, p46ff, p57n67

List of staff associated with WIHM

Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories (WPRL)

Located at Beckenham, London from 1922.

List of staff as of 1931 given in WAHMM/CO/Wel/B/4, image 2