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Archives and Manuscripts
This is the most important specialist manuscript and archival collection in Britain for the history of medicine. While medicine provides the unifying theme, hardly a subject relating to the history of European science and culture is not represented. Alchemy and chemistry, astrology and astronomy, physics, botany, zoology
and other areas of natural history, cookery and pharmacy, exploration and travel, geography and geology, horology, mathematics, magic, mesmerism, phrenology, patent medicine, quackery, psychoanalysis, psychology and sexology are among the vast range of subjects covered by the holdings.
Background
Archives and Manuscripts was formed in July 2000 by the amalgamation of Western Manuscripts and the Contemporary Medical
Archives Centre. It also has custody of the Wellcome Archives and holds the archives of the Wellcome Foundation.
Finding aids
Access to these riches is provided by the online Archives and Manuscripts catalogue, though this is by no means exhaustive and detailed finding aids are continuing to be uploaded. Over 70 sources guides provide summary guidance by subject, topographical area or format. A number of unpublished handlists are also available online. There is also guidance on researching objects formerly in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. Any enquiries should be addressed to Archives and Manuscripts: archs+mss@wellcome.ac.uk. In addition, the Wellcome Library coordinates various surveys of archive material relating to the history of medicine held in other repositories.
Access
All materials are held on closed access. Items need to be ordered and are produced in the Rare Materials Reading Room. Readers are required to complete an additional undertaking form and an appointment is always recommended for the initial visit. Advance orders, requests for appointments, and any other queries should be addressed to archs+mss@wellcome.ac.uk.
Western Manuscripts
The Western Manuscripts Collection, now amalgamated into Archives and Manuscripts, originated from Sir Henry Wellcome's own collecting activities, and contains material in some 25 different European languages, dating from antiquity to the 20th century. These include medical treatises and lecture notes, case
books and diaries, ledgers and accounts, recipe books, laboratory notes and correspondence, and many other types of handwritten record. Sir Henry's all-embracing conception of the history of medicine and omnivorous appetite for acquisition has bequeathed a host of unexpected riches, from works on medieval horsecraft to papers of Horatio Nelson on the provisioning of the
Mediterranean fleet.
Contemporary Medical Archives Centre
The Contemporary Medical Archives Centre (CMAC) was founded in 1979 with the aim of collecting and preserving records illuminating 20th-century developments in medicine, biomedical science and healthcare, concentrating on material in English created in Britain or parts of the former Empire. Besides the papers of
many individuals who contributed to the field, from Nobel Prize-winning scientists to GPs and lay individuals, records of numerous professional bodies, learned societies, research institutions, charities, campaigning organisations and propagandist associations have been acquired, as well as some business archives. Now part of Archives and Manuscripts, it features over 700
separate collections of archives and papers of organisations and individuals, and the number is constantly increasing. In 1989 the CMAC received a number of accessions from the Wellcome Tropical Institute, which was active between 1985 and 1989, including the Royal Army Medical Corps Muniment Collection which contains material on military medicine from the 18th to the late 20th
centuries.
Wellcome Archives
The Wellcome Archives are a large collection including the personal papers of Sir Henry Wellcome (1853-1936) and the archives of the Wellcome Institute and its predecessor bodies (notably the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum) and also of other research institutions he established. They are catalogued within the Archives and Manuscripts catalogue, and there is additional guidance on researching artefacts formerly within the museum collections.
Wellcome Foundation
The archives of the Wellcome Foundation, the pharmaceutical company established by Sir Henry Wellcome and his business partner Silas Mainville Burroughs, were received back from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in 2001. Cataloguing is in progress, and as
the Wellcome Foundation Archive is one of the largest held by the Wellcome Library, series of records will be made available as soon as they are catalogued and conserved. New releases will be highlighted in regular updates, so please check the site first if you have any queries.
Wellcome's World
Wellcome's World is a unique web resource that tells the story of our founder, Sir Henry Wellcome (1853-1936). Wellcome's life merged business, medicine, philanthropy and collecting; to cover these themes we
have selected material from across our collections and linked together our Library catalogue, Archives and Manuscripts catalogue and Wellcome Images. The majority of items included in Wellcome's World are drawn from the Wellcome Archives and Wellcome Foundation Archives.
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Wellcome Collection
