Wellcome Library’s Collections – An Introduction
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The document provides an introduction to the collections of the Wellcome Library, including an overview of its origins and unifying themes. It describes Sir Henry Wellcome's extensive collections focusing on the history of medicine which formed the basis of the Library. The Library houses diverse special collections spanning from medieval texts to contemporary born-digital materials, covering topics from alchemy to psychiatry. It aims to balance representing notable figures with ordinary practitioners. The Library's online resources provide broad access to its collections.
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Wellcome Library’s Collections – An Introduction
- 1. Wellcome Library’s Collections – An introduction Theories and Methods: Literature, Science and Medicine 25 th March 2010 Ross MacFarlane Research Officer [email_address]
- 3. Sir Henry S. Wellcome 1853 -1936
- 23. Vandyke Carter papers (MSS.5809-5826)
Editor's Notes
- Henry Wellcome, born 1853, influence of wild west, arrowhead
- Successful businessman: nature of drugs, importance of branding and celebrity endorsements to success of company, infl of tropical medicine
- Interest in history filters through into business. Used as decoration for BW&Co publications (BMA Guides and BW&Co Diaries)
- ‘Collect the everyday’: shows how man changed over time in relation to his attitudes to health and well-being. ‘Everyday’ life but also ‘everyday’ aspects of ‘extraordinary’ lives; Scale of collection: vast, kept accumulating, 1 million objects by his death Methods and approach: secrecy (“Epworth & Co”); collectors based abroad
- Collectors: C J S Thompson (1862-1943) was Henry Wellcome's key collector. Whilst Wellcome ploughed his profits from Burroughs Wellcome & Co into collecting, it was Thompson who not only assembled the purchased artefacts into what would become the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum but also co-ordinated the work of Wellcome's collecting agents across the world. Paira Mall: Mall's medical training, mastery of several oriental languages and knowledge of libraries, combined with his social connections (he had been chief medical adviser to the Maharajah of Kapurthala), made him the ideal man for the job. Employed by Wellcome from 1910 to 1926, Mall spent from ten years from 1911 travelling all over the subcontinent, collecting a vast number of artefacts and manuscripts. Mall was also instructed to arrange the copying of rare manuscripts preserved in private libraries. As a result, copies held in the Wellcome Library are often in a better state than the originals in India. Mall's letters and reports on his travels are a fascinating resource. In them, he describes delicate negotiations and the dangers he faced in his hunt for manuscripts - such as crossing rope bridges over ravines in Tibet.
- Captain Peter Johnston-Saint - An ex-Indian Army officer with impeccable social connections (the Queen of Spain was a childhood friend) and excellent linguistic skills, the dashing figure of Captain Peter Johnston-Saint (1886-1974) seems more at home in the pages of a John Buchan novel than in the world of inter-war book collecting. Joining the staff of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in 1920, Johnston-Saint rose to a position of Wellcome's 'Foreign Secretary' (in reality, a full-time roving ambassador for the Museum), and made highly successful trips through Europe, the Near East and India, all recorded in his colourful travel diaries. Having friends in the right places was imperative: in 1933 Johnston commissioned one Hirmiz Petrus - a cousin of a clerk to King Faisal of Iraq - to aid in the purchase of manuscripts in Iran and Iraq. Johnston-Saint's skills as a collector were recognised not only by his employer but by foreign governments: his programme for collecting memorabilia on French medical men directly led to his appointment (along with Wellcome) to the Legion d'honneur for their interest in France's cultural heritage. letters (just as Mall and Thompson) from overseas tours.
- Hold records on the Museum; reasoning behind accessions more interesting than the accessions themselves…
- Hall of Primitive Medicine – Wellcome seeing History of Medicine fitting into 19thC conceptions of progress
- Hall of Statuary – look familiar?
- CMAC – V important; cf rise of Social History (of Medicine) from 1960s on; similar growth of history of medicine as being much more than just ‘Doctors on Doctors’; Academic Unit (as it became) formed one part of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine (disbanded in 1999 when the Unit was transferred, administratively, to University College, London). The Institute title, adopted in 1968, also embraced the Library
- UK Web Archive; medical and health related website, charities, professional bodies AND individuals
- Autograph Letters – akin to the (everyday?) fragments of ‘Great Men’ collected by Wellcome…
- Mention fugitive sheets; ephemera items – not built to last? This one has head of Vesalius…
- Explains Wellcome’s ethos? Not the collection of a wealthy man collecting Old Masters…
- Snapshots – fragments, again?; Mixture of advertising (DO THIS!) to public information (DON’T DO THIS!); Up-t-o-date (Swine flu); Prostitute cards story…?
- Medical and Scientific Literature – how practises have developed, fallen from favour (evolution, phrenology…); Origin of Species , Gray’s Anatomy BUT ALSO Eat Yourself Thin
- Geography (South Asia – India, China, Thailand etc); Format (1000 palm leaf manuscript; ivory, bone, bamboo); Subject (spread wider than well-being; mythology,religion); Shown - Illustration which identifies and names the acupuncture points in some of the fourteen bodily tracts on the body. This illustration is derived from Chinese medical illustrations and depicts figures whose dress, facial hair and hairstyles identify them as Chinese; Japanese reading marks have been added to the text to ease understanding. Early 18th century
- Lady Ayscough – 17thC Manuscript
- Two works based on one item. Traditional history as opposed to first person account (History and Medical Humanities); Reinterpretation of our collections