Henry Wellcome

Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome FRS was an American British pharmaceutical entrepreneur. He founded the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome amp Company with his colleague Silas Burroughs in 1880, which is one of the four large companies to eventually merge to form GlaxoSmithKline. In addition, he left a large amount of capital for charitable work in his will, which was used to form the Wellcome Trust, one of the worlds largest medical charities. He was a keen collector of medical artifacts .

Wellcome was born in a frontier log cabin in what would later become Almond, Wisconsin to Rev. S. C. Wellcome, an itinerant missionary who travelled and preached in a covered wagon, and Mary Curtis Wellcome. He had an early interest in medicine, particularly marketing. His first product, at the age of 16, was invisible ink , which he advertised in the Garden City Herald. He was brought up with a strict religious upbringing, particularly with respect to the temperance movement. His father was a strong member of the Second Adventist Church. He was a freemason.

Source: Wikipedia