The years between 1830 and 1860 were rich years for Freemasonry, since in that period many of the men were born who later shaped the Craft. But one man, Henry Solomon Wellcome, who was born in that period, went on to be not only an exemplary Freemason, but also the leader of what became a world-wide pharmaceutical empire, and an extraordinary collector and archaeologist.
    Henry Wellcome was born in Almond Wisconsin, in 1853. The Wellcomes were a poor farming family and Henry’s early life was a hard and eventful training-ground. By 1861 his parents had moved to the newly-founded State of Minnesota. It was there, during the Civil War, that he helped his uncle, a medical professional, to treat men wounded in the Sioux uprisings, and it was the influence of his uncle which played the largest part in forming Henry’s later career in pharmacy. The brutal treatment received by the Sioux at the hands of the white settlers made a lasting impression on the young man, who in his early years already saw the inner nobility of the Indian culture.
    In about 1877, Henry made the acquaintance of Silas Mainville Burroughs, an employee of the pharmaceutical company John Wyeth in Philadelphia. Burroughs was gregarious and likeable, certainly Wellcome found him so, and when Burroughs moved to Europe to work for Wyeth there, the two remained firm friends. Burroughs had set his sights on founding his own firm, and repeatedly asked Wellcome to come and join him in a new endeavour. Wellcome at first proved hard to get, but finally gave in, and the full partnership between the two men commenced in London in 1880.
    By that time, Burroughs had made a number of appointments to his fledgling firm. The first name on the register of employees dated 1879 is that of Robert Clay Sudlow, who two years earlier had been initiated in East Surrey Lodge of Concord, No. 463 (today Croydon Lodge of Concord). It seems almost certain that Sudlow, who had been Burroughs’ right hand man, was instrumental in bringing Wellcome into Freemasonry. Wellcome was initiated in Fidelity Lodge, No. 3 in 1885, and Sudlow was present. The third degree was conferred on Wellcome in Eastes Lodge, No. 1965, by Sudlow himself. One year later, Sudlow initiated the man whose name was second on the register of employees, William Henry Kirby.
    Wellcome, although in many ways difficult to get on with, and at times diffident, liked to play the bon viveur, the man about town, and was eventually a member of several clubs, lodges and chapters. But it would be wrong to suppose that with all this social activity, he neglected the business. His devotion to the interests of Burroughs, Wellcome and Co. was untiring. He travelled widely, selling the products of the company, and was its best publicist. Indeed, when Burroughs later accused him of spending too much time socialising, Wellcome was quick to point out how much business he was bringing in through social contacts, and this certainly was the case.
    In the 1880s the company worked on an idea by Wyeth to compress medicines into the form of tablets, and eventually developed their own compressing machines. Burroughs also had an interest in Freemasonry, having been initiated in Clapham Lodge, No. 1818. In 1884, the year that Burroughs became a joining member of Fidelity Lodge, Wellcome registered the company’s famous trademark ‘Tabloid’, applied to a variety of products. The name ‘Tabloid’ in those days had of course nothing to do with newsprint. This development gave an enormous boost to the fortunes of the company, but by then Burroughs and Wellcome were locked in an unseemly quarrel over various aspects of the partnership. Burroughs’ greater financial interest in the firm meant that he earned more from it, and Wellcome, in view of the amount of work put in to further its interests, felt this to be unjust. The quarrel was long, did not reflect much credit on either partner, and finally came to a head with a hearing in the Chancery Division of a petition to wind up the partnership. The year was 1889, the same year that a number of Burroughs Wellcome employees formed, with others, the Clarence Lodge of Instruction, meeting at Tupps Restaurant in the Tottenham Court Road. Wellcome was Treasurer.
    The Chancery Division hearing proved a victory for Wellcome, when the judge threw out the action and decreed that the main part of the costs should be borne by Burroughs. But despite the efforts of others in the firm, there was to be no rapprochement between the two men. In fact, in all the litigation between them, Wellcome leant heavily on his two most trusted masonic friends, Clay Sudlow and Will Kirby.
    However, there was a most unexpected turn of events when, in 1895, Burroughs caught a chill which turned to pneumonia, and within a few days he was dead. Wellcome observed the proper formalities on the death of his partner but, despite the battle now waged with Burroughs’ widow over control of the firm, it was clear that Wellcome was now free of the constraints which the partnership had placed on him.
    Now Wellcome, who believed in research for its own sake, planned and staffed his own chemical research laboratories, and in addition, fulfilled another lifelong ambition: the assembly of books and artefacts relating to the history of medicine and pharmacy. Now that he had the means, it became an all-absorbing passion.
    In 1898 Kitchener had conquered Sudan, and Wellcome decided to go and see the country for himself. He was received by Kitchener, and found the country ravaged by disease and malnutrition. He proposed, and eventually set up, a tropical disease research laboratory in Khartoum. This laboratory proved to be at the cutting edge of medical science. Together with Wellcome’s other research laboratories, it was instrumental in developing and manufacturing anti-toxin serums for diptheria, typhoid, dysentery and tetanus to name but a few. Many years later in 1935, when the Sudan government closed it down without consultation, Wellcome felt the blow keenly.
    On leaving Khartoum, Wellcome returned to Cairo, where a party newly arrived from England included the vivacious and high-spirited Syrie Barnardo, daughter of the celebrated Dr. Thomas Barnardo. Wellcome had met her some years earlier, but the two now fell in love, and married in 1901.
    Although they had a son, who was born in 1903, the marriage was not a happy one. Wellcome was 48 at the time of the marriage, Syrie was 26, and the age difference doubtless had an adverse effect on their marriage. Syrie never became attuned to Wellcome’s many interests, and was profoundly bored by all the travelling and collecting of artefacts. The marriage coincided with the flowering of Wellcome’s many interests, and by 1911 those interests had taken over to the extent that Henry and Syrie separated amid bitter recriminations.
    At the outbreak of the Boer War, Wellcome had seized the chance of being of service to his adoptive country in ensuring adequate medical supplies to British troops in South Africa. The Royal Army Medical Corps had been proved to be utterly incompetent – of the 22,000 troops who died in the war, a staggering 16,000 had died of disease, and Wellcome’s intervention was a much-needed one.
    At this time also, Wellcome had planned a suitably generous gift to Grand Lodge in London, of a portrait, commissioned by himself, of George Washington in masonic regalia. This was intended to mark, in 1899, the centenary of Washington’s death, and to cement relations between America and Britain. Although the artist, Robert Gordon Hardie, had been commissioned to produce the portrait in 1898, due to his illness the painting was only presented in 1902. It hangs today in the Drawing Room on the first floor of Freemasons’ Hall in London.
    Wellcome, Sudlow and Kirby were all members of the Clarence Lodge of Instruction, and in addition worked sections of the Emulation lectures at Festivals of the Emulation Lodge of Improvement. Kirby, although the junior of the three, distinguished himself as the Preceptor of the Clarence Lodge of Instruction, but was tragically killed in a gas explosion in 1895. In tribute to his memory, the Lodge of Instruction’s name was changed from ‘Clarence’ to ‘Kirby’, and Wellcome, together with the Lodge of Instruction members, paid for the erection of a handsome memorial to Kirby in High Wycombe Cemetery.
    Five years after Kirby’s death, the Kirby Lodge, No. 2818 was founded, all of the founders being keen Emulation Lodge of Improvement workers. The only name missing from the list of founders was that of Henry Wellcome, who had become embroiled some years earlier in a quarrel with members of The American Society in London, a quarrel which spilt over into his masonic and social life. Nevertheless he was a member of a number of lodges and chapters in London, notable amongst them the Columbia Lodge, No. 2397, which had been formed for expatriate Americans living in London, and which counted Gordon Selfridge amongst its members.
    Wellcome was knighted in 1932, by which time the imposing Wellcome Institute building in Euston Road London had been completed, and so his pharmaceutical empire was complete. He died of cancer in 1936 at the age of 83.
    At the end of his life, he had every reason to be proud of his achievements. He had achieved many advances in medical science and pharmacy. He had done more than any other man before or since to promote the history of medicine, and had left a legacy, public and private, which has enriched the lives of many, and on many different levels.

With acknowledgment to Tom Howes of Fidelity Lodge, No. 3

Further reading – Henry Wellcome, Robert Rhodes James.