Dr Walter Hadwen (1854 - 1932)
Fund his humane research work
Dr Hadwen was one of the greatest minds of his time but because of his radical views on medical and social matters, like all great pioneers and radical thinkers he got him in trouble with the powers that were.
At the age of seven he could read Latin as brilliantly as he could read English. At the age of thirteen he passed his preliminary examination for entrance into the Pharmaceutical Society. At the age of twenty-one he became a vegetarian and at the age of twenty-three he had his own wholesale and retail pharmacy business.
He was a devout Christian but he was not content with going to church periodically and acting like a Christian because he was born into a Christian family. He believed that his Christian principles should drive his work as a doctor and as a pharmacist. He felt that Christian compassion and love should be extended to all animals not just human beings.
When he was not seeing patients, he was continually writing letters and articles against vivisection. He believed vivisection was wrong because of the unspeakable suffering caused to innocent animals and he realised long ago that you could not simply apply the results of animal experiments to human beings.
Today there are thousands of pills to cure thousands of illnesses but regardless of how many prescriptions are dispensed we now know that many of our illnesses can be avoided if sanitary and social conditions can be improved. This is precisely what Dr Hadwen wrote when he looked into the problem of smallpox in the Gloucester area in 1896.
He was the President of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, an organisation that is still going strong today. He was also the main inspiration behind the Dr Hadwen Trust, an organisation that helps to fund humane research into cancer, cirrhosis, lung disease and meningitis amongst other conditions.
He was still in active practise when he died aged 78.
I buy a lot of chocolate from The Dr Hadwen Trust. After consuming large amounts of this chocolate I go for long runs to burn off the calories, but I know the money is going to used for humane research, so that makes me feel less guilty.
Dr Benjamin Zephaniah
