The Wellcome Foundation Archive

The Wellcome Trust received the historical records of the Wellcome Foundation (WF) by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in 2001. Cataloguing is in progress, and as the WF 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. Details can be found in the online Archives and Manuscripts catalogue.

The WF Archive dates from 1860 to 1995, and covers the period from Wellcome's business partnership with Silas Burroughs (Burroughs Wellcome & Co.) to the emergence and consolidation of a highly recognised international pharmaceutical company. After Wellcome's death the Foundation was the sole asset base for the Trust until shares in the Foundation were floated on the stock market in the 1980s leading to the merger with Glaxo (to become GlaxoWellcome) in 1995.

The Collection contains a range of records from the company, including papers belonging to Wellcome himself, also Burroughs, Frederick B Power and Sir John Vane. There is a large collection of images, some audio-visual material, and significant legal and marketing collections. The records of the Therapeutic Research Corporation (collaborative work on penicillin carried out during WW2) also form part of this collection.

The records contain material of interest to a variety of researchers, not just pharmaceutical and business historians, but also those interested in corporate branding and trademarks (especially 'Tabloid'), local history (at sites such as Dartford, Beckenham and Berkhamsted), genealogy, international company history, and the medical profession as a whole.

Cataloguing is well underway and releases include:

• Coopers board papers
• Wellcome diaries
• Wellcome Chemical Works papers.

New releases will be highlighted in regular updates on this site, so please check these pages first if you have any queries.

Enquiries about the WF Archive should be addressed to Archives and Manuscripts: archs+mss@wellcome.ac.uk.

Please note that operational research and development records were retained by GSK.