The Wellcome Collection .

The Institute of Sexology at The Wellcome Collection .

 The two substantial buildings - one in traditional stone the other an ultra modern construction -  that house the Wellcome Trust take up a substantial part of the busy Euston Road close to the British Library and St Pancras International Station.    In a prominent position it’s a rather grand location, but nowhere near half as impressive as the man from whom the trust takes its name. 

 Henry Soloman Wellcome was born in 1853 in the north western part of the USA to an itinerant missionary who with his wife travelled the country in a covered wagon preaching to the unconverted.  Given the middle name of Soloman one might wonder if his father had a premonition of the riches that would come to him, however Henry was brought up with a strict work ethic and deeply religious convictions.   He displayed an early interest in medicine , eventually working  as an executive for a  pharmaceutical firm  and at the age of 26 together with a colleague called Burroughs began his own company  – Burroughs, Wellcome & Co.

In 1901 Wellcome married Gwendoline Maud Syrie Barnardo, a daughter of  Thomas John Barnardo.   Born in Dublin, Barnardo trained as a doctor at The London Hospital in the East End of London and after qualifying set up a Ragged School in the same area, where poor children could get a basic education. It's still there prominently positioned on the now fully updated and regenerated East London section of the Grand Union Canal and a popular visitor attraction. Welcome went on to later found the charitable foundation known as the Dr Barnado Childrens Homes which still exists today.  The marriage  was perhaps Welcome’s first brush with philanthropy and may possibly have influenced him in some way in later life.

His wife, better known as Syrie was a by all accounts  a flighty  thing and during their marriage allegedly had several affairs , one with the department store magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge, and another with author William Somerset Maugham with whom she had a child and later married.  Wellcome divorced Syrie in 1915 naming Maugham as co-respondent , but  later displayed no apparent ill feeling about the whole episode.

In 1910, Wellcome became a British subject and in 1932 after being made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons he became Sir Henry Wellcome, a knight of the realm.   He died in The London Clinic in 1936, aged 82, and in his will vested the entire share capital of his company in individual trustees, who were charged with spending the income to further human and animal health. 

In the window of the excellent restaurant in this section is a ball gown decorated with 6000 foil wrapped contraceptive pills, at its waist an inter-uterine device donated by a schoolteacher for whom it had provided continuous contraception for 26 years.

 The Wellcome Trust was established as a charitable foundation eventually becoming one of the world's largest private biomedical charities.  Dedicated to fund biomedical research and support the public’s understanding of science and independent of both political and commercial interests, it is the largest provider of non government funding in the UK as well as one of the largest in the world. 

Wellcome was an insatiable collector , especially of medically related artefacts and by the time of his death there were a total of over one million objects in his collection.   His collection of books, paintings, drawings, photographs and other media is available for viewing at the Wellcome Library and a selection of the remainder formed the basis for an  exhibition aptly entitled The Institute of Sexology.

Billed as “eye popping” and “an intellectual romp” it was neither the largest or most luxurious I have covered in my time , but it was certainly one of the most interesting and thought provoking.   The figure of a life sized naked man hanging upside down from the ceiling in the huge reception area could certainly be described as “ eye popping “ , sadly I couldn’t discover the significance of it , but the remainder of the display I found to be very significant indeed.

                                                   
                                                         SIR HENRY WELCOME

The three separate illustrated guides, headed Spicier , Braver and Deeper made it very easy to navigate the entire exhibition  as well as providing a useful amount of information. Mainly about sex of course, the exhibits in the Spicier Trail included  an early Roman amulet in the shape of a large penis with small bells hanging from the frenum ,that could be worn round the neck or hung in a courtyard rather like a modern wind charm.

Items about the temptations in the Garden of Earthly Delights”  by Hieronymus Bosch illustrates his narrative about the origin of sin and the constant argument of whether it condemns or supports lascivious human behaviour. In the window of the excellent restaurant in this section is a ball gown decorated with 6000 foil wrapped contraceptive pills, at its waist an inter-uterine device donated by a schoolteacher for whom it had provided continuous contraception for 26 years.  The Braver Trail was primarily a powerful exploration of human stories of oppressed sexualities, with numerous unusual medical artefacts to support them. The Deeper Trail was part meditative contemplation which ponders over some intriguing theories and leads on into the Reading Room. This is like no other reading room I have ever been in – where lush cushions line the sweeping staircase and you could even try on an antique straitjacket.

The archives contain the original records of some of the major sex researchers of the 19^th and 20^th century including Kraft-Ebbing , Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey and Masters & Johnson’s  unique accounts of hundreds of individuals having sex.   Also on display was Wilhelm Reichs orgone accumulator , a small closed box just big enough for one person that the client sat inside while receiving a dose of orgone, which would supposedly lead to good health and a renewed sex life.  Input by the visitors themselves, who were all invited to complete a personal survey also formed a valuable part of the exhibition itself. 

I was particularly attracted to this exhibition by its description of a candid exploration of private acts spanning art, erotica, film and photography, the very same subjects I have studied and written about over the past forty years or so.   This brand new gallery is dedicated to year long shows which will continue when this one ends to include new commissions that may have evolved during the run of this present exhibition.  Within this context I am surprised that no organisation anywhere in the world has so far included an exhibition to publicly examine the naturist lifestyle and wonder if perhaps such an event would fall within the aims and ambitions of The Welcome Collection.