The evolution of the Wellcome Trust and market-based philanthropy in the UK

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the industrial wealth of super-rich entrepreneurs in the United States produced a systematised philanthropy, seeking to address the fundamental causes of societal problems. These entrepreneurs created a new institution, the philanthropic foundation, to achieve their objectives, and influence and change social structures. Building on explanations of these philanthropic ventures as manifestations of entrepreneurial philanthropy, this paper examines the emergence and evolution of the Wellcome Trust. Created in 1936, the Wellcome Trust was funded from the profits of a pharmaceutical multinational, in which the Trustees held the entire share capital. Based on archival research, we examine the development of a market-based philanthropy, whereby successive generations of trustees managed the competing priorities of a multinational enterprise and a philanthropic organisation. In so doing this research offers a new understanding of entrepreneurial philanthropy’s scope: focused on the activities of trustees, rather than the founding entrepreneur.