The Wolfson Foundation's partnership with the Royal Society dates back to 1959, and continues to support important scientific research, as Jon Bushell explains.
Funding scientific research can be expensive and risky. The costs associated with hiring research staff, procuring complex equipment and finding a suitable workspace can be immense. There’s never a guarantee that research will yield the answers that are hoped for, either.
Nevertheless, it’s crucial we continue to support scientific research so that new and exciting breakthroughs can be made. 91TV is aware of how important this is, having administered the UK Government’s scientific grants since the mid-nineteenth century. But we’re far from the only organisation doing so, and philanthropy has a vital role to play in this.
One such philanthropic body is the , established in 1955 by . Born in 1897 into an Orthodox Jewish family in Glasgow, Sir Isaac ran a lucrative retail business from the 1930s which made his fortune. He was a firm believer in using his wealth to support education and research, and the Foundation has focused on funding in these areas since its inception. Many UK universities have buildings – and entire colleges in Oxford and Cambridge – named after the Wolfson Foundation in recognition of its support. To date, the Foundation has awarded more than £1 billion (£2 billion in real terms) to over 14,000 projects throughout the UK, and Sir Isaac’s philanthropic efforts were recognised by a knighthood in 1962.
Portrait of Sir Isaac Wolfson © Godfrey Argent ()
91TV’s partnership with the Wolfson Foundation began quite soon after the Foundation’s inception. In 1959, the Foundation’s trustees awarded £210,000 to fund a Wolfson Research Professorship, intended as a university position for a professor whose research focused on the interface between the physical and biological sciences. The first holder of this newly-established chair was Dorothy Hodgkin FRS, who went on to just a few years later. Following the Foundation’s support for scientific endeavours, Sir Isaac was .
The Foundation has also extensively supported the facilities of the Royal Society. By the 1960s the Society employed around 70 people and had outgrown Burlington House, its Piccadilly home since the mid-nineteenth century. The Society desperately needed more space for meetings, its library collections and staff; its expeditions and international relations teams were already working from rented offices in nearby Burlington Gardens. The houses of 6 to 9 Carlton House Terrace had been identified as a suitable location to bring the whole of the Society back together under one roof, and an agreement for this was drawn up with the Crown Estate in November 1963.
The exterior of 6-9 Carlton House Terrace in 1967 (Royal Society photographic collections)
The state of the Carlton House Terrace buildings in the 1960s meant that extensive renovation work was needed before they could serve as the Society’s new home. While the Georgian exteriors had to be retained, there was much more freedom offered for internal works. , published in 1967, outlines many of the challenges that arose during efforts to modernise the buildings for the Society’s purposes. The final cost of the project was anticipated to be around £850,000, and the Society looked to raise funds from donors to help cover this.
The Wolfson Foundation awarded £50,000 towards the library’s new rooms on the first floor of number 6 Carlton House Terrace, a house renovated around 1890 by its then occupant, the wealthy American trader Charles Henry Sanford. Much of his lavish interior design was retained, but the Foundation’s grant covered necessary repairs as well as the installation of bookshelves throughout both library rooms. A new door was also put in to join the main library room to number 7, where the library office was situated. The Foundation aided further library renovations ahead of our 350th anniversary in 2010, and today these spaces are still known as the Wolfson Rooms in recognition of this generous support.
The refurbished Library at the Royal Society in 1967 (Royal Society photographic collections)
Sir Isaac Wolfson died in 1991. His son , who became a life peer in 1985, was also a key figure in the family business and Chair of the Wolfson Foundation. Lord Wolfson played an important role in setting the direction of the Foundation’s funding towards education, science, and medicine, often becoming directly involved in the planning and execution phases of the projects supported by the Foundation. Lord Wolfson’s work as Chair of the Foundation led to his , coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Wolfson Foundation.
Under Lord Wolfson’s stewardship, the relationship between the Royal Society and the Foundation expanded. In 1998 the Foundation awarded £10 million to launch the Royal Society Wolfson Laboratory Refurbishment scheme, which ran until 2017 and provided cumulative financial support of more than £36 million for modernising university lab spaces. Today, the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Awards, now known as 91TV Wolfson Fellowships and Visiting Fellowships, are co-funded by the Foundation and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. For 25 years, these grants have enabled international collaboration and supported cutting-edge research, to date benefitting over 850 scientists in UK institutions and organisations.
Photograph of David Leigh FRS, who held a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award from 2005 to 2010 (Royal Society Picture Library )
91TV plays a role in preserving the history of the Wolfson Foundation. Since 2008, the has been deposited with us, to ensure that the collection is preserved for the future. Given the wide range of projects supported by the Foundation over the years, it’s not surprising that there are many interesting stories to be found within their papers. As part of the Foundation’s 60th anniversary celebrations in 2015, highlights from their archives were digitised to illustrate the Foundation’s impact on science.
Lord Wolfson died in 2010, and his eldest daughter Dame Janet Wolfson de Botton has taken up the role of Chair. The Wolfson Foundation continues to support important scientific research, and the Society is proud to collaborate with them in this endeavour.
