Thoughts on the Wellcome Trust 1963-82.

Since its creation in 1936, the Wellcome Trust has carried out the wishes of its founder in the promotion ofresearch in medical science and in the history ofmedicine. Its achievements have been recently chronicled by A. R. Hall and B. A. Bembridge in a volume reviewed on pp. 473-475 below, and, more briefly, by Lord Franks in the following retrospect. It would be superfluous here to describe the role of the Wellcome Trust in the development of medical research, but its importance for the history of medicine cannot be underestimated. Without the support of the Wellcome Trustees, the history of medicine in the United Kingdom would scarcely exist as an academic discipline, or as more than local antiquarianism, and historians from all over the world would be deprived of the rich resources of the Wellcome Library and the Wellcome Galleries at the Science Museum. In congratulating the Trust on its golden jubilee, historians of medicine everywhere must also express their grateful thanks for the Trustees' ongoing commitment to the ideals of its founder.