Which pharmaceutical magnate founded the Wellcome Trust in 1936?

The pharmaceutical magnate who founded the Wellcome Trust in 1936 was Henry Wellcome.

Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome was an American-born British pharmaceutical entrepreneur. In 1880, he co-founded Burroughs Wellcome & Company with Silas Burroughs, helping build the business whose corporate descendants eventually became part of GlaxoSmithKline.

Wellcome died in 1936 and left his fortune, including his interest in the pharmaceutical company, to trustees. Those bequests created the Wellcome Trust, which was established to support research improving human and animal health. Thus, the trust’s origin is tied to his will and legacy rather than to a later corporate charitable department.

A common mix-up is the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, a separate U.S. biomedical research foundation established in 1955. The Wellcome Trust itself is the major British charitable foundation created from Henry Wellcome’s estate.