The story of the Wellcome Foundation Ltd (1955)

[Music] in Houston Road in Northwest London stands the welcome building it was built originally as a research institution and its founder was Henry Solomon welcome who was born in America in the days when the white man was still fighting The Red Indians he came to London in 1880 a young man with no money but a great ambition and 50 years later he erected this building to house some of the Research Laboratories the medical museums and libraries which he had founded Houston Road runs east and west across the northern boundary of Bloomsbury a district which contains many of London's colleges and museums looking south from the roof of the welcome building you can see the tall white Tower of London University itself and University College with the Dome of its library in the foreground away in the distance are other famous London landmarks the towers of Westminster the houses of Parliament and big Ben the welcome building is today the headquarters of the welcome Foundation limited the private company embracing all Henry welcome's interests commercial as well as academic at home and overseas and the story of this organization is also largely the story of its founder it All Began just over a 100 years ago Henry Solomon wilcom was born on August the 21st 1853 in Wisconsin in a log cabin in a tiny Frontier settlement called Armen 6 years later his family migrated westwards to The Plains of Minnesota where they settled in a place called Garden City a little town of wooden houses here's the one the family lived in where the children learned their lessons in a simple logous school here young Henry spent his Boyhood amidst poverty and hardship with his elder brother and his mother to whom he was devoted with his father who was almost fanatically religious and his uncle a doctor whom he always much admired but at the age of 17 he decided what he wanted and went away and left them all to start his career first he went to a nearby town to work for a firm of druggists making up prescriptions then he went on to Chicago to spend a year in studying Pharmacy and other subjects after which he traveled eastwards for a final year of work and study in Philadelphia and gradu uated from the College of Pharmacy there in 1873 3 months later he was 21 and then in a rather solemn letter home he told his parents his ambition to attain wealth and live a life devoted to the true God and to mankind so off he went to New York where he shortly got a post with a firm of wholesale druggists soon he'd shown himself to be a first class salesman and then was sent out traveling for his firm introducing new medicines to doctors and to pharmacists in this way he came to visit many places in the states and also gained much valuable experience of different marketing conditions finally he made a journey down the western coast to visit Mexico and all the leading cities of the Central American Republic he continued on to South America and while in Ecuador he went Inland to see the sinona forests and gather specimens of the bark and leaves to take back with him for quinine preparations were important products of his firm then when he was 27 there came an offer of a Business Partnership in England so in April 1880 he left New York sailing in the SS city of Berlin thus he came to England and he traveled up to London to join Silas mville burs another Young American and with a starting capital of 2,000 they opened an office in the city in this late Victorian London with its streets lit by gas lamps and its horsedrawn buses they furnished their office with plush and with Walnut with chairs and setes in it alligator hide but they also had it fitted with what was then the very new Edison electric light from the startop the business prospered for the times were most propitious and they had new Goods to offer those marked hazeline they made themselves and they had the sole rights for Kepler molted products but in addition they were agents for two American firms and sold new compressed Goods accurately weighed and measured machine-made pill and gelatin coated capsules but these soon proved too costly to import and so they opened a factory in London and made their own and in the first 5 years the capital increased sfold then they bought an Old Paper Mill at Dartford 20 M or so away from London and moved the factory there and with a party and a grand display of fireworks they opened it in the summer of 1889 by then their foreign trade was starting in 1886 an Australian Depo had been opened and a dozen others for the sale of goods elsewhere had been established by 1895 by which year to their Capital had grown to something like a quarter of a million but in that very year the picture changed for in December Silas barrows died quite suddenly so Henry welcome thus became sole owner of the firm and at last he had his great chance to achieve the whole of his ambition so first he concentrated on the business this in the following years expanded greatly just compare the size of the catalog for 1897 with that for 1910 overseas new branches were opened in Cape Town New York Montreal Milan and Shanghai and 16 new depos in various places the different trademarks give an indication of the range of goods all these had been register by 1910 some are still in use today such as hazeline and saxin and Kepler and the familiar tabloid which was registered in 1884 this somehow caught the public fancy and even got into the dictionary though it can only legally be applied to Butter's welcome products by 1910 to The Elegant unicorn had been registered all over the world as the general trademark of the firm of all the goods they issued ude this had quite the prettiest pack a special Rose tinted skin cream that sold very well in the Far East its modern counterpart is still in demand there today in those old packs Henry welcome made great use of stuffers as they're called folded Bits of Paper printed with advertising matter in half a dozen different languages the welcome medical d was another of his ideas it was first issued in its present form in 1897 and it has appeared every year since then now any doctor who cares to ask for it receives a copy of one of the available editions Henry welcome set his standards High fine products he called his goods and he also coined various other complimentary slogans prepared with materials of exceptional Purity he added but he saw to it that these things were true so when the factory was enlarged in the early 1900s he built an analytical laboratory for testing all raw materials he kept it up to date in other ways too motor Vans began to replace the HSE drawn ones in 192 and when electricity was installed about the same time he had traveling belts put into the packing departments an innovation in those days but to the girls of today working with modern machines moving belts are just a part of the accepted order of things here they are filling and packing bottles of a new synthetic drug designed to relieve nasal [Music] Qatar in another part of the works compressed products are made the pure drugs are first mixed with binding agents they are dried and sifted and then compressed into different kinds of tablets and the total output amounts to Millions every day n [Music] [Applause] [Music] these are vials of insulin which has been one of the firm's most important products since 1923 when the first commercial batches were [Music] produced other machines are filling tubes these contain a cream for the treatment of sunburn and insect bites and yet others are filling ampols all these processes are just a small part of the work of a modern Factory turning out pharmaceutical products the employees are mostly people from the town of Dartford and nearby many come when they are young and some stay until they retire so their association with the firm plays a big part in their lives which is the Great because there's also a flourishing Social Club whose biggest annual event is the summer garden party this is undoubtedly one of the oldest Works clubs in the country for it was founded by Henry welcome in 1899 he acquired for it this house and its grounds in Dartford itself and here are some of the first members year by year the staff and their families come to the garden party to enjoy themselves and sooner or later everyone turns up here from the youngest new trainee to the chairman and managing directors the mayor of Dartford is also present for there is by now a close link with the town which is acknowledged by including the symbol of a tablet in its coat of [Music] arms but to Henry welcome mere Commercial Success was not enough he coupled it with something else an enlightened encouragement of research in the 19th century the work of Jenner puster and many others led to the rapid development of bacteriology from about 1870 onwards and then to an entirely new approach to the problem of disease the concept of acquired immunity serum was first used experimentally in England in the Summer and Autumn of 1894 and later in that year the production of anti dioritic serum began on a large scale at the welcome physiological Research Laboratories which had just been open for that purpose these Laboratories were also intended for fundamental research in bacteriology and other Sciences over the years many famous men have worked there here's the staff in 1914 when Sir Henry Dale was the director such men stayed because Henry welcome gave them freedom to do original work unhampered by commercial considerations in 1922 the Laboratories were moved to langle court a beautiful State at Beckham in Kent with grounds large enough to allow room for [Music] expansion today in the old mansion house are the directors office and the reference library part of the biochemistry department and the pharmacology Department here the action of drugs on the living tissues is studied essential work before any drug New or Old can be issued for clinical use with this apparatus effects on breathing are observed in this particular case it's the effect of an antidote to Morphine which is being studied the completed record shows first normal breathing then the diminution following the dose of morphine and finally the equally rapid and complete recovery produced by the antidote frequently the results of this type of research have to be assessed statistically this itself is a job for experts the serological Laboratories occupy a considerable area for the number of different vaccines and Sara now available is very large and research in this sphere has become increasingly important most of the serum is obtained from horses and therefore extend Ive Stables are required altogether more than 350 serological products are issued by these Laboratories many of them are for veterinary use amongst these are the lamb dentry preparations which were developed here a few years ago other Veterinary research is carried out at a field station at Frant about 30 m away a 300 acre estate on the rich farming land of the Kent Sussex border here special attention is paid to problems of infertility in horses and cattle the stallion used in this work ran in the derby and here are the brood mares which are also used in the breeding investigations in experimental plots of grass the effect of different soil fertilizers on the yield and mineral content is studied for these affect both the health and productivity of grazing animals and here is the fine herd of a tested pedigree AA cattle these two are kept for breeding experiments and for the production of tubic free milk research in chemistry started in 1896 in a laboratory in the north of London and here too the work was primarily academic the investigation of the active drugs in medicinal plants for example inran a tropical plant whose seeds contain a drug of value in heart disease in Urgot a parasite of Rye from which several valuable alkaloids are extracted in uana route in digitalis both the purple English Fox Glove and the pal Hungarian one which both contain drugs used in certain heart diseases in cascara bark and nutbags and calbar beans these were but a few of the important investigations in the following years today chemical research is carried out on a large scale at langle court in a fine new laboratory some of the work is still plant chemistry for many naturally occurring drugs are still used in Therapeutics and continual work is necessary to improve the methods of extraction but the emphasis today is rather more on the preparation of synthetic drugs compounds whose chemical structure is specially designed to give them certain required properties not long ago for instance a study of the morphine molecule suggested that this grouping of atoms might be a promising start for the preparation of a new analgesic so first this compound was made it wasn't very active so a molecule of water was removed to give this one and then by changing various parts of both of these hundreds of other compounds were prepared finally out of them all two active ones emerged from each series four in all similar in structure but with different properties one suitable for the treatment of Parkinson's disease another for pipic ulca the third was an antihistamine and the fourth an analgesic and all of them are now available for professional use the Laboratories at langle court are today collectively known as the welcome Research Laboratories and the staff there number several hundreds they all appear to enjoy their Pleasant surroundings and make the fullest use of them at lunchtime and after working [Music] hours research in tropical medicine began in 191 when Henry wilcom equipped and staffed Laboratories at the Gordon Memorial College in cartoon here he is with some of the staff on his right sits the director Dr Andrew balfor who afterwards became his first director-in-chief of research in London part of the equipment was a floating laboratory which proved invaluable for field work in the upper reaches of the Nile these Laboratories were the forerunners of the welcome Bureau of scientific research which was opened in London in 1913 as a center of information in tropical medicine with facilities both for research and instruction this made way in 1932 for what is now the welcome building and on the top three floors of which are the welcome Laboratories of tropical medicine here both academic and applied research proceed side by side this is part of a special investigation of certain leptospiral diseases another department is devoted to protozoal diseases such as sleeping sickness and malaria and yet another to virus diseases here are some of the specimens of parasitic worms in the helminthology department and these are living examples are one of the species of the human blood flukes in which there is particular interest at present for experimental purposes laboratory infections of these are maintained and for this it is also necessary to keep large numbers of tropical freshwater snails insects are an important study because many tropical diseases are transmitted by blood sucking species and a knowledge of their biology and structure is therefore of fundamental importance some insects too are bread here setti flies transmitters of sleeping sickness anopheline mosquitoes carriers of the malaria parasite and this is a South American bug which transmits chugas disease so common in Brazil the work of the chemists is mainly to synthesize new drugs and these are later tested in the chemotherapy Laboratories against the different diseases on the ground floor of the welcome building is the welcome Museum of Medical Science which is devoted to Tropical medicine this is an educational institution planned at postgraduate level in it the different diseases are grouped according to cause [Music] the museum is used by students from all over the world and many thousands of doctors visit it each year but perhaps the greatest of Henry wilcom's interests was the history of medicine and he used to say that it dated from the day when as a child he found a flint Arro head and was told it was a prehistoric weapon certainly as the years went by and he became weier collecting became a passion with him and many is the journey he made across Europe in this car in his search for specimens his collection became available to students in 1913 when the welcome historical Medical Museum was opened like all his projects he planned it on a lavish scale to cover the whole of the history of medicine and Allied sciences and it thus includes a vast number of different objects such as figures of ancient gods of healing this is the Egyptian imotep of 4,000 years ago esculapius the same God in Greek culture some 2,000 years later figures of primitive medicine like this one from central Africa or this Shaman from the North American Indians there are shrunken human heads from Ecuador the equipment of old Alchemists and Drug jars of all periods these are 17th century Italian ones there are Sur iCal instruments of all kinds like this 18th century amputation s cupping sets such as this with its vicious little mini bladed instrument for scarifying the flesh tranning sets and all the other equipment of Physicians and surgeons Through the Ages as well as objects of more personal interest like the collection of Lord List's instruments from which this antiseptic spray comes anything was included which either directly or indirectly affected the health of mankind his collection of medical books formed the basis of the welcome historical Medical Library which is now one of the largest medical libraries in the world containing over 200,000 volumes as well as many thousands of manuscripts and autograph letters this is an old Anatomy book published in the year of the accession of the first Elizabeth it contains the earliest copper plate Engravings ever made in England [Music] here's one of the manuscripts a beautiful Persian one a 17th century copy of the writings of aisna the famous Arabian physician of the 10th century and this is one of Madame C's notebooks containing some of the details of that first laborious extraction of radium in 192 these are examples picked at random but there's hardly a single important happening in medicine or science that's not represented in this Library by an original manuscript or book [Music] archaeology was another of Henry wilcom's interests in 1910 at Jebel Meer on the Blue Nile a site chosen by himself he set to work to excavate the remains of some of the Primitive Ethiopian tribes which once lived there for this he imployed about a thousand native laborers primitive fighting people quite unused to working but with firmness and patience he persuaded them that there were advantages in regular work and pay he even introduced English Field Sports in which they enthusiastically took part and over which he presided benignly this is the only film record we have of Henry welcom taken in 1912 by the camp photographer here's the whole company at the pay parade this work finished with the start of the first world war but it was more than 30 years later before all the results were finally assessed and published together with the account of a similar expedition to leish in Palestine in 1933 in which however welcome himself never took [Music] part in 1910 Henry welcom had become a naturalized British subject and 14 years later he took another big step to consolidate all his scientific and business business interests on the 1st of January 1924 the welcome Foundation limited was registered as a private company with a capital of a million he himself was the permanent chairman and governing director and the principal overseas branches were registered as separate companies owned by the welcome Foundation limited the scientific institutions continued to operate under separate Direction public honors came late to Henry welcome when he was 75 he received the honorary degree of doctor of laws of Edinburgh University four years later he was kned and also elected an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and a fellow of the Royal Society in the coat of arms he now chose he symbolized his interests and included a syona tree the rod of esculapius and the torch of learning and he put his aim in his motto 2 years later within a month of his 83rd birthday he died and the funeral notices went out from the Welcome research institution the building in Houston Road of which he'd been so proud then while the board of directors continued the day-to-day working of the foundation the company's shares were transferred to the welcome trust five distinguished men previously selected by Henry wilcom who now had the task of applying the distributed profits as he himself had been doing for the support of resarch teaching in medicine and Allied Sciences under which terms the trust Tres have already distributed more than half a million pounds to universities and learned bodies in different parts of the world today the welcome Foundation limited has a capital of £3 million it has nine Associated houses overseas and agents or distributors in nearly every country in the world the largest of the associated houses is in New York with its own Research Laboratories and Factory employing close on a thousand people both at home and abroad the industry is continually expanding to keep Pace with modern needs in Therapeutics single addition of recent years will be when it is completed the new building next door to the present works at Dartford where the most Advanced Techniques can be employed for the manufacturer and packaging of pharmaceutical products and so Henry welcome's ideal of an industry based on research and in its turn supporting research to an extent far beyond its immediate needs needs is being realized an ideal conceived by him in its broadest outlines more than 50 years ago and now perpetuated in this organization the welcome Foundation Limited