Medical and Veterinary Trust Funds
We are the trustee of over 100 trust funds, used to support academic activities at our federation members, the School of Advanced Study and Senate House Library.
The trust funds were established following generous donations from supporters. Some are almost as old as the University itself, dating back to the 1850s, while many others have been created since 2000. Please find details of our Medical and Veterinary Trust Funds below.
Medical and Veterinary Trust Funds
Thomas Brown’s legacy was the first benefaction received by the University of
London, made in 1852 and originally intended to fund the founding of an Animal Sanatory Institution. After the closure of the Institution in 1939 and the destruction of its buildings in an air raid in 1944, the funds in the Trust were divided between the University and Trinity College Dublin. In 1970 the High Court approved the proposal of the Royal Veterinary College that the University of London portion of the funds should support a research fellowship and the University was given the power to alter the regulations of the Trust.
The Thomas Brown Animal Fund currently supports PhD studentships at the Royal Veterinary College.
When the South London Hospital for Women was founded early in the 20th Century a Trust was established to purchase the site for the hospital. This Trust provided that, if the site was not used for the Hospital for a year, the property should revert to the University to support women professors in medical subjects and to teach female medical students. The Hospital was closed in the 1990s and with the money it received from the sale the University established the Chadburn Lectureships.
Chadburn Lectureships are tenable at the four University of London member institutions with medical schools (King’s College London, Queen Mary University of London, St. Georges, University of London and University College London). They are not restricted solely to women as was originally intended because of changes to equality laws. The Chadburn Lectureships may be held in any branch of medicine on a part-time basis. Their purpose is to provide opportunities for doctors in training, whose personal circumstances make it difficult or impossible for them to give full-time commitment to their careers. Each medical school is responsible for recruiting its own Chadburn Lecturers.
The Chair of Child Health was established following a donation from the Nuffield Foundation in 1944. The Foundation made the donation on the condition that the University establish an Institute of Child Health and that the Chair of Child Health be attached to the new institute. The Institute of Child Health was established in 1946 and is located on Guilford Street, next to Great Ormond Street Hospital. In 2006 the Institute became part of UCL’s Faculty of Biomedical Sciences and is now named the UCL Institute of Child Health. The Institute, in partnership with Great Ormond Street Hospital, is the largest centre in Europe devoted to clinical and basic research and postgraduate teaching in children’s health.
The Heath Clark Lectureship was established in 1930 and is for the purpose of funding a lectureship on “the history and progress of preventative medicine and tropical hygiene.” Income from the Fund is allocated to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, which awards an annual lectureship in the history and progress of preventive medicine and tropical hygiene. The Lectureship is offered as a three-month residency, during which a public lecture is given.
The Dietetics Chair fund was created in 1927 following an anonymous donation to the University. The University Chair was discontinued in 1956 and the income from the Fund was paid to Queen Elizabeth College as a contribution towards the post of Chair of Nutrition and Dietetics. Queen Elizabeth College has since been incorporated in King’s College London, which has a Department of Nutrition and Dietetics. The annual income of the Fund is paid to King’s to support the role of its Professor of Dietetics.
The Geoffrey E. Duveen Fund was created in 1923 and originally intended to support a lectureship in Otology. The Fund was established in 1924 from a gift by Geoffrey E. Duveen in memory of his father, Henry J. Duveen, one of the founders of the art firm of Duveen Brothers of London, Paris and New York.
In 1999 the purpose of the Trust Fund was varied and the Geoffrey Duveen Fellowship in Otology was established. In 2014 the University’s Trust Funds Committee agreed a new Scheme for the Trust. The income of the Fund is currently allocated to UCL for the appointment of a Duveen Fellow.
In 1990 the Frost Trust made a donation to the University for the purpose of establishing an academic Chair in Ophthalmology. The Frost Chair has been based at both King’s College and at UCL during its history, and the Trust Fund has also funded other research into ophthalmology.
The current Frost Chair of Ophthalmology is Professor Christopher Hammond, at King’s College London. The Fund has also supported the establishment of the Frost Lectureship at King’s.
Hilda Schachmann left in her will a fund to be called the Goldberg-Schachmann Memorial Fund, with the income to be used for the purpose of supporting students engaged in medical research at the University. In 1991 the University Court agreed a scheme for allocating the funds to undergraduate medical students at each of its Medical and Dental Schools with undergraduate teaching.
Freda Becker also made a bequest to the University for medical research and the then Academic Trust Funds Committee of the University decided that this should be used to increase the sums awarded from the Goldberg-Schachmann Fund. Since 2003, the funds have been combined to provide research grants for undergraduate medical students at King’s, Queen Mary, St. George’s and UCL. The Member Institutions are responsible for the awarding of funding to their own students.
The Maplethorpe Fellowships in Pharmacy were founded in 1985 as a result of a bequest from the late Mrs M.B. Maplethorpe in memory of her husband. The funds were to establish C. W. Maplethorpe Postdoctoral Fellowships in Pharmacy, for the promotion of pharmaceutical education or research at the former Chelsea College (now part of King's) and the School of Pharmacy (now part of UCL).
The Maplethorpe Fellowships in Pharmacy continue to be hosted by King’s College and UCL; the awards are overseen by the Maplethorpe Committee.
The Fund was established in 1937 following a gift left to the University by Miss A. B. Marshall in memory of her father, who had been a Professor of Surgery at University College between 1866 and 1888. Miss Marshall’s will stipulated that the Fund should be used for the “advancement of surgery.”
The income of the Fund is currently allocated to UCL, for the provision of matched funding to enable academics in its Division of Surgery to secure further support for surgical research.
In 1948 the Province of Natal (part of South Africa) decided to make a commemorative gift to the UK, which took the form of the Natal Province Centre for Child Care at the Institute of Child Health. The Fund was given to help maintain the building on Guildford Street.
The Institute of Child Health is now part of UCL and the Natal Fund is used to support the Institute’s core activities, such as research into: Cancer, Cardiorespiratory Sciences, General and Adolescent Paediatrics, Genes, Development and Disease, Infection and Immunity, Neurosciences and Mental Health, Nutritional and Surgical Sciences and Population Health Sciences.
In 1957 the Nuffield Foundation made a further donation to the University (see Chair of Child Health) to mark the 80th birthday of Lord Nuffield. The donation was made to establish an academic Chair at the Institute of Child Health.
The Trust Fund continues to support the UCL Institute of Child Health.
In 1963 the Sembal Trust gave the University an endowment for a Chair at the Institute of Ophthalmology. The annual income of the Fund is allocated to the Institute of Ophthalmology at UCL.
In 1911 the University accepted an endowment from Sir Felix Semon for the Semon Lecture, to meet the cost of providing a commemorative bronze medal and an honorarium for the Semon Lecturer in Laryngology. The Lecturer is nominated by the Semon Committee, which also nominates the winner of the George Davey Howells Prize in Otolaryngology, awarded for a published contribution to the advancement of the subject.
The Isaac Schapera Research Trust was created in 2005, following a bequest from Professor Isaac Schapera for the purpose of contributing towards the cost of research at any one or more of the University’s medical schools, into problems relating to the causes and cures of diseases. Under the current scheme for the Trust, the income is divided among the four medical schools, to provide research support and materials for junior doctors on Academic Foundation Programmes.
In 1946 the Wellcome Trust provided an endowment for the stipend of an academic Chair to be based at the School of Pharmacy. The intention of the Wellcome Trust was to restore and extend opportunities for research. The annual income from the Fund is allocated to the School of Pharmacy, now part of UCL.
In 1945 the Wellcome Trust provided funds to support a part-time Chair in Tropical Medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Further funding was subsequently provided to the University to make the Chair a full-time post. The income of the Fund continues to be allocated to the School.