Sir Henry Wellcome

Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome
Henry Wellcome in 1930
Born	(1853-08-21)21 August 1853 Almond, Wisconsin, U.S.
Died	July 25, 1936(1936-07-25) (aged 82) London, England, UK
Known for	Founding Burroughs Wellcome & Company and the Wellcome Trust
Medical career
Profession	Pharmaceutical entrepreneur

Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome FRS (August 21, 1853 – July 25, 1936) was an American British pharmaceutical entrepreneur. He founded the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Company with his colleague Silas Burroughs in 1880, which is one of the four large companies to eventually merge 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 (Wellcome Collection).

Wellcome was born in a frontier log cabin in what would later become Almond, Wisconsin 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,(MN) 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.

In 1880, Wellcome established a pharmaceutical company, Burroughs Wellcome & Company, with his colleague Silas Mainville Burroughs. They introduced the selling of medicine in tablet form to England under the 1884 trademark "Tabloid". Previously, medicines had been sold mostly as powders or liquids. Burroughs and Wellcome also introduced direct marketing to doctors, giving them free samples. In 1895, Burroughs died, aged 48, leaving the company in the hands of his partner, Wellcome. The company flourished and Wellcome set up several research laboratories linked to the drug company. In 1924, Wellcome consolidated all his commercial and non-commercial activities in one holding company, The Wellcome Foundation Ltd.