The American pharmacist Sir Henry Wellcome used his fortune to form the foundation which now funds the London museum, the Wellcome Collection. He is commemorated with a blue plaque at 6 Gloucester Gate on the north east side of Regent’s Park.

WISCONSIN TO LONDON

Wellcome was born on a farm in Wisconsin, USA, where he later worked in his uncle’s drugstore and demonstrated his entrepreneurial flair by marketing his own invisible ink. He came to England in 1880 and set up a pharmacy business with fellow American Silas Mainville Burroughs.

The company, Burroughs, Wellcome & Co, promoted a new form of compressed pill and became enormously successful. The fortune Wellcome made was ploughed into the founding of medical research laboratories and museums, which were consolidated as the Wellcome Foundation in 1924.

GLOUCESTER GATE

Wellcome leased 6 Gloucester Gate as his London base in about 1920 and it remained his home until his death. He was reclusive during these years, partly due to the failure of his marriage to Dr Barnardo’s daughter Syrie, who he married in 1901 and divorced 15 years later. However he accumulated medical books and artefacts with energy. Wellcome, who became a British citizen in 1910 and was knighted in 1932, hoped that his anthropological collections would form the basis of a ‘Museum of Man’. This never came to pass, though much of the best material is now in the Science Museum, and his books form the basis of the Wellcome Library, housed by the Wellcome Trust.